Without A Toasting
by BodoniBold
Summary: After the Victory Tour, Katniss and Peeta are forced to get married…and ten of President Snow's top officials have tickets to watch the wedding night. Rated M
1. Chapter 1

My first novel-length fan fiction, the Hunger Games from Peeta's POV starts on Friday, February 6th, but I'm posting a little drabble from a shorter fic every day in anticipation.

**Without A Toasting**

**Chapter 1**

Cinna stands behind me, adjusting the drape of the gauzy robe he has arranged over my shoulders. I watch him in the mirror in front of me. For once, even his presence does nothing to calm my frayed nerves. My eyes drift back to my own reflection and I try to steel myself. Just this and President Snow will be satisfied. Just this and I can go home. I've already made it through the lavish ceremony, mouthing the strange words they say at Capitol weddings and I can get through this.

I twist the wedding band Peeta put on my left ring finger. I don't normally wear any sort of jewelry and it feels tight, constricting. The small P engraved in a flourish of swirls shine up at me. Peeta. My husband.

I push the thought away. He's not my husband. Not really. It's not a real marriage without a toasting. I cling to this fact and attempt to dredge up why I'm doing this, to remember the people whose lives are in danger without my cooperation. Prim. My mother. Gale. No, I can't think of Gale back home, how he must have felt as Peeta and I got married live on television, how he must feel now knowing what comes next.

But Snow would have killed them all if I couldn't stop the uprisings, couldn't convince the districts that I love Peeta. For them, for _Prim_ I have to be willing to give up everything.

This would be bad enough if it were just Peeta waiting for me on the other side of this door, but behind a two-way mirror there will be ten patrons who have paid for the pleasure of _watching_ us. A fine tremor that I can't control takes over my body. Why would they even _want_ to watch? Two kids who have no idea what they're doing? It's perverted. Sick. Almost worse than the Games.

The door opens and Effie Trinket trots in, her metallic green wig still in place. She chose it to match our wedding colors, green and gold, which she also chose after I refused to make the decision.

She comes up to me and kisses the air around my cheek, avoiding the makeup my prep team so artfully applied. "Oh, looks like someone's having a little case of wedding night jitters." She chuckles. "It's to be expected, after all."

I glare at her. I have to remind myself it's not really her fault, no one's foolish enough to tell her anything.

"Cinna," she says. "Would you mind stepping out, hmmm? I want to spend a few moments alone with our bride. _Girl talk_, you know, before the _big event."_

Cinna gives my shoulder a little squeeze, smiles sadly and leaves me in the room with Effie. I prepare myself for some embarrassing explanation of what goes on between a man and a woman or worse, advice on how I should act.

For a moment, I'm taken back to the four hours I spent with Effie before the interviews, learning how to smile and walk in high heels. _No, Katniss, you must walk gracefully up to Peeta and remove your clothes slowly._ I'm almost hyperventilating now. The last thing I need are more lessons from Effie.

Effie pastes a bright smile on her face that doesn't reach her eyes. Maybe she's not as in the dark as I thought. "I have a present for you," she trills, holding out a small, brightly wrapped package in a golden bow. I reach out to take it.

"It's from President Snow," she continues. "A matching set, one for you, one for Peeta."

My hand recoils at the sound of the Snow's name as if the gift were a snake ready to strike. I don't want anything from him.

"Go on, take it," says Effie.

I take the square box in my hand. It's tiny. The whole thing fits in my palm. What could it be? Some final torture? What could make this any worse? With growing dread, I slide the top off the box.

Inside, nestled in red silk is a single white pill. Is it poison? A way to get rid of me now that he has what he wants? Or is he giving me a chance to escape this humiliation?

"It's Charm," Effie says when she sees my confusion. "Something to make you relax. Enjoy everything a bit more."

In other words, something to ensure his cronies get a good show.

I look at the little pill. I don't want to take it, serve them right if we weren't able to perform, but I don't want to go in there and ruin everything now after we've worked so hard.

Effie pours me a glass of water from the pitcher left sitting on the side table and hands it to me. I look at the pill one last time before closing my eyes and swallowing it down.

Effie hugs me once before leaving and Cinna comes back in, silently. He seems to sense how I don't want to talk. He brushes my hair out, letting it tumble pass my shoulders. It had been braided for the ceremony, the way my mother does it, so now it cascades in waves.

Cinna finishes as the door to the bedroom slides open.

The pill doesn't work. I can feel my heart pounding as I step into the candlelit room. More than candlelit. The walls themselves have a faint glow as well. All the better to see us. My eyes stray to the large mirror on the other side of the room and I have to fight the urge to run.

A door on the other side of the room opens to reveal Peeta dressed only in pajama bottoms, the hard planes of his chest tapering down to his lean stomach. It's been almost a year since I've seen him so undressed. Then, he'd been near death, shivering from fever and starvation in the Games. There's nothing left of that now weakness now.

Despite the nightmare that is this situation, I am relieved to see him, but I find myself pulling on the hem of my very short robe. I know it's pointless, but I can't stop myself. Peeta's eyebrows raise at the motion and I can feel myself blush.

We stand there. Neither of us moves from in front of our doors, but then Peeta is walking toward me and I go to meet him. I mean, what's the point of putting it off?

Peeta pulls me close and I bury my face against his chest, slowly taking in breaths of his warm, clean scent. I can feel myself relaxing into his arms. And then Peeta's tilting my face up and his lips find mine.

I give myself up to the kiss. Peeta's kissed me hundreds of time. There's no reason to be nervous about that. For the first time, I feel what must be the effects of the pill Effie gave me, an incredible warm that moves down my body and makes me gasp against the warmth of his body against mine, the hard length of him pressed against my stomach. The room turn soft and golden around the edges and I find myself rising up on tiptoe, my hands knotted in his hair, drawing him closer.

Without breaking the kiss he picks me up, moving away from the two-way mirror, but not towards the bed like I'm thinking. I find myself pinned against the far wall. We stay like that for a long time, him just kissing me, his hands tamely at my waist, but the drug makes his every touch electric. Just the pressure of his hands above my hip leaves me gasping with pleasure. Then I feel his hand slips to my robe, untying the bow, letting the fabric open to reveal my body.

"Beautiful," he murmurs against my neck.o:p/o:p

I want to tie it back up, hide, not from him, but from the eyes of those vulture watching us. In the Games, the audience is miles and miles away, but there are people, almost in the same room with us, behind a thin plane of glass watching every touch, every caress. I hate them. There's a part of me that wants to go over to the glass and tell them exactly what I think of their depravity.

The frustrated must show on my face because Peeta stops and pulls me back into the shelter of his arms.

"Don't Katniss… don't think about it. There's just you and me here," Peeta says.

He kisses my forehead then my cheek and finally my lips until the drug fogs up my thinking again and I wrap my legs around his waist.

It is in this haze that I realize why Peeta picked this corner and not the bed. They won't be able to see me here, Peeta is blocking their view of me with his body. My heart swells with thankfulness. I can't be more grateful that it's him here with me. That I still have him to protect me.

His warm hands cup my small breasts, gently brushing the sensitive tips to send waves of pleasure through my body. After that, Peeta's the only thing holding me up because I've gone limp. His hands move downward around the curve of my thigh and then one finger, then two are inside me. It feels strange to have him touch me like that, foreign but then he does _something_ and the heat that had been simmering, boils over and I'm moving against his hand, shuddering uncontrollably into his shoulder. I hear myself call his name. When the shockwaves subside I look into his blue eyes, incredulous, but there is just something faintly amused in his gaze tinted with something else. A kind of satisfaction. I didn't know it would be like this, never imagined this kind of pleasure.

It has to be the drug.

He kisses my cheek, before maneuvering between our bodies to pull his pants away and kick them aside. I see the outline of his hardness and even though it's much too late for modesty, I look away. Without taking his eyes from mine, I feel him push against me and I hold tight to his shoulders until he's buried fully inside, and we're both breathing hard. He drops his forehead to rest against mine and I can feel his struggle for control before he's moving inside me, slowly at first until I begin to response, matching him. I close my eyes, letting the pleasure wash over me.

Peeta begins breathing in heavy gasps that turn into groans. The same tension as before builds inside me and I come apart against him again, but this time he follows me, shouting my name in his release.

Long moments pass before I come back to myself and Peeta's carrying me to the large canopy bed in the center of the room. He lays me down against the soft covers and I nearly panic, thinking he's going somewhere, but then he's slipping in next to me, wrapping me in his arms, his hand running soothingly down my back. He yawns loudly. As I'm drifting back into sleep, a thought occurs to me.

"It's like eating the Capitol food," I say drowsily.

"What is?" Peeta asks.

"_This_," I say.

He snorts softly, "You would think that."


	2. Chapter 2

Chapter 2

When I wake up, the bed is warm, almost too warm. Oh, I know. It's Peeta. That's alright. We must be on the train again.

I relax back into him, enjoying the feel of his legs entwine with mine and the steady strum of his heart beneath my ear. I'm halfway back to sleep when I realize I'm not on the train and that the chest beneath me is completely bare. My eyes snap open only to find sleepy blue ones staring at me. His hands starts making lazy circles against my back.

"Morning," Peeta says.

Now, in the light of day, I don't know what to say to him. To be honest, it's not like we did all that much talking last night. I feel myself blushing as the memories from our wedding night come back to me.

Peeta's fingertip comes up to brush against my hot cheek, leaving a cool line. "It's a little late for blushing now."

I can't meet his eyes and I don't want to have whatever conversation I'm supposed to have with him. Really, all I want to do is bury my head in his chest and go back to sleep, but I know I can't do that.

I shift away from him, feeling a twinge between my legs as I try to untangle mine from his, but his hand on my waist stops me, holding me against him. It isn't a hard grab, but just enough pressure to make me pause. That's when I feel his hardness pressing against my stomach.

Yeah, that's enough to make me look at him.

His eyes are inquisitive, testing the boundaries of our relationship, what we are to each other. I realize he wants me again, like last night. The drug they gave me last night must still be in my system because a part of me wants it, too.

That thought is enough to have me scrambling up from him. I hear him let out a sigh as I sling my legs over the far side of the large poster bed.

"I'm going to have a shower," he says after a few minutes of silence. "Unless…" he starts then trails off.

"Unless what?" I ask.

He heaves another sigh, "Unless you want to go first."

I shake my head and the bed feels strangely empty as he gets up and goes into the bathroom

I listen to the water flowing in the connected bathroom and use the time to compose myself, taking long, calming breaths.

I look at the wide two way mirror and force down the sudden nausea. There's no way to tell if there's anyone still behind it, but I doubt they stayed there all night. My reflection barely looks like me. My once smooth hair sticks out in every direction, the artfully applied makeup smeared beyond repair.

My emotions seem are just as muddled as my face. I can't sort through anything, not how I feel about Peeta, not how I feel about our marriage, it's all too jumbled and confused. Anyway, with the Capitol's drug still pumping though my veins, there's no telling which part is me and which part is what they've done to me. Mostly, I feel vaguely sad, like the emotion is far away and belongs to someone else.

Peeta takes a long shower. By the time he comes out, draped in a white terry robe, toweling off his blond curls I have the thin sheet from the bed wrapped firmly around my naked body.

He doesn't look at me as I pass him. For some reason, that brings the sadness into sharper focus and my chest aches.

What does he expect, anyway? I think as I wash the remaining makeup from my face. I didn't want this. Neither of us wanted this to happen. We choose to do this to protect our families, to stop the uprisings. He can't expect me to be happy about it, to fall into his arms. I scrub my face until my skin is bright red.

A few tears of frustration find their way into my eyes and I wipe them away angrily. I braid my wet hair into its normal braid then find the second bath rope hanging in a small closet and put it on.

Peeta's gone when I open the door, but there's a dress lying on the side of the bed and a pair of shoes. The knee length dress is a conservative gray, the same color as my eyes, but the heel are high. A frisson of anger goes through me.

I hate high heels.

By the time I've dressed and feel confident enough to walk in front of Effie Trinket, I can hear voices coming from the sitting room I used last night.

I balance on the heels and carefully make my way into the room. Only Haymitch and Effie are there, along with Peeta. Peeta looks up as I enter, but his eyes flit away just as quickly. I wonder where the stylists are.

I find the nearest seat and fling myself into it. An assortment of food is laid out on silver trays that sit on the table. I help myself to some of the sausage and a thick bowl of smooth grain. There's only one slice of melon left, so I take that too.

"You look ravishing this morning," Effie says brightly. "Considering the night you've had." She chuckles a little into her gloved hand like she's made some sort of joke.

Haymitch shoots her a hard look. "We're leaving for District Twelve in about two hours," Haymitch says. "We've missed the harvest festival, but President Snow insists that the district throw you wedding reception. After that, this should all be over until the Quarter Quell."

I nod, hating the idea of another forced celebration, especially one Gale will have to attend. As my "cousin" he might be required to be there.

"And there's one more thing," Haymitch says. He suddenly looks uncomfortable, not meeting anyone's eyes, but staring fixedly at the abstract painting above my head. "According to President Snow and the Capitol media, there was a security breach and footage from last night was leaked out across Panem. Approximately, eighty percent of the Panem saw your wedding night live on television."


	3. Chapter 3

**Chapter 3**

"You're lying," Peeta says. His voice is a low, strangled whisper.

But he doesn't believe his own words any more than I do. Why would Haymitch lie? And it makes sense doesn't it? No, not a security breach, but a purposeful leak. How better to convince the districts of our romance? Or maybe it had nothing to do with our supposed romance. Maybe Snow just wanted to show the world that we are his puppets.

A shiver starts in my fingertips, making the fork in my hand clatter to the plate. The tremors move down my body, tiny earthquakes that urge me to my feet. The chair crashes to the ground behind me and I'm sprinting back toward the bedroom, jumping right out of my heels, leaving them right in the center of the floor.

I wrench the door to the tiny closet open and slam it shut. I hesitate for a moment before burrowing, animal-like, beneath the wooden shelving and empty hangers. I wrap my arms around my legs and bury my face in my knees.

And I try not to scream.

The shivers are stronger now and my breath comes out in harsh pants. They hadn't say anything about cameras. Wasn't it already bad enough to force us to share our wedding night with the highest bidders? They had to lie, too.

I have to say, I didn't see this coming. Maybe I should have. A place that kills children for entertainment would think nothing of violating us this way for political leverage.

Despite the shower, I feel dirty, exposed in the worst way. Eighty percent of Panem. Did that include District 12? The food I just ate rises and I fight down the nausea. Eighty percent of Panem.

A knock at the door makes me jump.

"Katniss," Peeta says softly.

Part of me wants him so badly, wants to run into the comfort of his arms, but another part of me cringes at the thought of him touching me. I know it's wrong and it doesn't make sense, but somewhere inside I blame him.

I try to smother a choked cry.

"Katniss," he repeats. His voice is more urgent now. I hear him try the door knob.

"Don't," I call our and the knob stops turning.

"Please, don't…don't freeze me out Katniss," he says. His voice is nearer to the ground and much closer. He must be sitting on the floor now. "They did this to both of us."

I don't say anything, can't say anything to that. It's true, but right now the raw, throbbing pain and disgust feels too huge to share.

Peeta doesn't say anything else either, but I can sense him just on the other side of the door, a comforting presence in spite of my fears. He stays there, guarding me, like he did in the cave. A wave of exhaustion hits and after a while, I start to doze.

Low murmured voices on the other side of the door bring me back to wakefulness. I think I hear Haymitch say "go in an hour" and "cameras waiting." Peeta answers, but the sound is indistinct.

I hear walking and the main door opens and closes, then the door to the closet is yanked open and Haymitch is standing above me. I squint up at him through the suddenly bright light.

"You've wallowed long enough," says Haymitch. "Cinna's here to fix the damage, since you won't be wearing these to the train station." He holds up one of my shoes. The heel is broken, hanging away from the rest of the shoe at an awkward angle.

"Did you know?" I ask. "What they would do?"

Haymitch looks away from me before turning back to pin me with hard gray eyes. "No, I didn't know," he says. "But even if I had, I'd have let you two go through with it."

"Why?" I ask. "Why would you let them spread…_that_… all over Panem?"

"Because you're still alive. Peeta's still alive," he says. "Both your families are still alive. And doing _exactly_ what they want is the only thing keeping any of you that way. So now, sweetheart, you're going to get up, get dressed and we are going to go home."

"Was the leak…I mean did they see it in District Twelve?" I ask.

"Yes," says Haymitch. "Despite the odds, District 12 had electricity last night and they got the full coverage."

"Did you watch?" I ask, although I don't know why, but in a sick way I want to know.

"No," he says definitively. "I could barely stomach seeing you kiss during the Games. Why would I do that to myself?"

As usual, Haymitch has succeeded in making me feel simultaneously better and worse, but when he offers me his hand, I take it and he pulls me out of the tiny cubicle.

Peeta is gone, but Cinna is standing in the doorway between the bedroom and the sitting room. He has another garment bag draped across his arm. I walk over to him. When I reach him, he cups my chin and tilted my head back so I meet his gaze.

"We won't let them take your spark, will we, girl on fire," he says.

The prep team isn't there, so it is Cinna's hand that makes me beautiful again. We don't talk about the video, only what awaits me outside the sanctuary of this hotel suite. Apparently, the ride to the train station was supposed to be a quiet event, may be one or two cameras, but now it will be an event.

Instead of my usual braid, Cinna has given me an elegant bun, swept way from my face and wound intricately at my nape. He replaces the gray outfit with an equally conservative blue one, this time with lower heels. When I look in the mirror, I am no longer a girl, but a woman. This, of course was his plan all along. Today, I am to be a married woman. I fiddle with the band on my ring finger while Cinna makes the final adjustments to my hair.

Cinna pulls out a pair of oversized dark sunglasses. "I _thought_ you might need these," Cinna says. "But it looks like I underestimated you."

It's true I haven't cried about this, but I don't think it's because he's overestimated my nerve. Mostly, I'm still too shocked.

We meet up with the others and I see that Portia has come as well. Peeta looks handsome, dressed in a dark blue suit and tie. We say goodbye to the stylists and ride to the station in a car with blackened windows.

An army of photographers is waiting for us at the train station. There are more than when we won the Games, more than during the Victory Tour, even more than during the wedding.

The sea of slick, black cameras paralyzes me and I stop mere inches from the car. The photographers are being held back by two long stretches of metal railing, leaving us a single corridor to the train platform. For a moment, I get the impression that these cameramen aren't people at all, just cameras mounted on top of human bodies.

Peeta comes around from the other side of the car and wraps his left hand in my right. I can feel the smooth metal of his wedding ring slide against my skin as our fingers interlace.

"Katniss! Katniss!" the people behind the cameras call out my name, begging me to stand still, to look at them, to turn this way or that. Then the shouts turn ugly.

"Some night, right Katniss!"

"Did you see it?"

"Were you a virgin?"

In the few steps we take toward the train, the words become so foul that I try not to listen, but I hear every obscene joke. I count the steps to the platform. Fifteen steps to go if we hurry. Ten steps. We are almost there, when one of the photographers slip under the railing to stand between us and the train.

"Was it everything you thought you it would be?" the man asks as the flash of his camera goes off in my face, blinding me.

Peeta reacts, knocking the camera in the man's hand to the ground. The photographer loses his balance and falls backward onto the ground.

"That's my wife. My _wife_. You don't talk to her like that," he says before turning to the crowd, shaming them with his words. "We didn't ask for any of this to happen. How would you like it if someone did this to you? How would you feel if something you cherished, that should have been special, was made into a sick joke? Think about that."

Then Peeta is guiding me around the photographer who is still on the ground, searching for the broken pieces of his camera. I look up into Peeta's face. His usual smile is nowhere to be seen. It has been replaced with a look of strange intensity, the way he looked on that first train when he knocked Haymitch's drink over.

We join Haymitch and Effie on the train and the train takes off as soon as the doors are secured. Peeta drops my hand and heads toward the sleeping compartments, muttering something about taking a nap.

I don't see him for the rest of the night. He misses dinner and doesn't come to my room afterwards. I don't know whether to feel relieved or sad. My body misses him, though.

As I'm drifting into that place between waking and sleeping, my body mourns losing the steady beat of his heart beside me, the warmth of his arms cradling my back, the taste of his kisses, the feel of…. I have to force the thoughts away and let sleep take me.

I don't wake up until Effie knocks on my door to tell me we are pulling into the District 12 train station, where both our families are scheduled to meet us.

"Time to meet the in-laws," Effie trills.

Yes, that will be bad enough, but how will I ever look my mother in the eye again? My baby sister? How am I going to explain this to Gale?


	4. Chapter 4

Chapter 4

I stalk through the mayor's mansion looking for a place to hide, trying to be as silent as I am in the forest while wearing heels and an ankle length gown. The leering looks, the crush of people, every pearl of laughter has become too much to bear. My emotions are rubbed raw and I can't keep the fake smile plastered on my face one more second.

If I stay, there's a chance I might come apart in the middle of the dining room and I know I can't do that. Not while the cameras are still here, not while the Capitol's still watching. I can't let Snow see me beaten.

Meeting my family at the train station was one of the hardest things I've even done. And considering I was in the Hunger Games, that's saying a lot. For the first time ever, there was something like shame in my mother's eyes when she looked at me. I turned red with my own shame under that gaze and I hate myself for it. She doesn't have the right to look down on me, like I did something to make this happen. Like everything she's done is above reproach.

Prim seemed immune to the cameras, the shouts. She just wrapped her arms around me like nothing had happened and I felt a moment's peace from this storm.

Gale wasn't there. I don't know if it was because he wasn't invited or because he refused, but I only feel relief at his absence. Facing him in front of the cameras with Peeta, _my husband,_ at my side would have been too much. I know I'll have to talk to him soon, he's my best friend, my hunting partner. He deserves an explanation, but it doesn't have to be today.

Peeta's family ignored me. They virtually ignored him, all except his father who he's spent most of the night talking to. Peeta introduced me to them, which was strange because I know them all, at least by look if not by name. The brothers smile blandly at me and the mother glares. I'm sure we talked, but I can't remember what was said. All I can think is that everyone in this room has probably seen that video, are imagining what they saw when they look at me.

So when Peeta's not by my side I slip away, up the stairs and away from the noise and the doubt. I find a cushioned bench in one of the mansion's long hallways and sit down. I try to curl my feet up, but the gown protests the movement. It's one of Cinna's creations, but since neither he nor the prep team came back with me, my face is make-up free and my hair is in its normal braid. None of it matches the elegance of the dress. Cinna should have been here if they wanted me presentable. I don't know why he stayed behind in the Capitol.

Maybe his duty is over.

I'm no longer a tribute and the Victory Tour is officially over. That thought depresses me. Cinna not being a real friend, just someone doing a job.

A creak on the stairs alerts me that someone's coming up. I'm preparing myself for a confrontation with either Peeta or Haymitch when Madge Undersee comes into view. I don't know why I'm surprised, after all, this is her house.

She's come from the party even though I don't remember seeing her. The formal dress she wears is palest pink and her blonde hair is held back by a headband. At this moment, it's hard to remember we're the same age, that we've been almost friends for years. I feel so old now and so much has happened.

"Everyone's looking for you,' Madge says. She doesn't look particularly worried about everyone. I also suspect she's doing her own disappearing act, slipping away from the party just like me.

"I just needed a break," I say. "I'm going down soon."

Madge looks at me again, hesitates for a second, and then walks over. "Come on," she says. "I have something to give you."

She grips my hand and drags me down the hallway to what I realize is her room. In the months since the Games I've visited her here several times. Madge closes the door shut behind her before rummaging through her draws and pulling out a rectangular box about the size of a book.

"For you," she says, putting the box in my hands. The serious look on her face reminds me of when she gave me the mockingjay pin.

I lift the lid to find syringes wrapped in plastic blister packs. I count twelve of them.

"They're birth control," Madge says. "My mother gets them smuggled in from the Capitol. She gave me this box on my seventeenth birthday. I just…I've…never had any reason to use them."

I finger one of the syringes through the packaging. Each syringe is already pre-filled with liquid. They represent their own silent rebellion against the Capitol. The districts have limited access to birth control because of the Games. Widespread use of birth control would destroy the Capitol's pool of potential tributes.

The birth control also brings to mind something that hadn't managed to make it into conscious thought until now. That this gift might be too late for me, that my wedding night may have more consequences than a leaked video. _A baby._

It's not possible.

Against my will, my mind conjures up the image of a baby with Peeta's bright blue eyes. A child I couldn't help but love. A way for Snow to exact an even worse revenge.

I push the thought away, I have to. I'll know in about two weeks if I have anything to worry about. I can't do anything about it here. Still, I hear my voice shake as I thank Madge.

I find Peeta waiting at the foot of the stairs when Madge and I come down.

His eyes search mine.

"Are you okay," he whispers.

I nod, but I can tell I'm not fooling him. He takes my hand in his and we walk back to the party. I slip the box among the other gifts that litter a wide table by the entrance. Peeta sees but doesn't say anything. He just tucks me closer to his side and we smile for the cameras.

The party last well into the early morning hours. We don't make it to Peeta's house until the break of dawn. Peeta unlocks the heavy door and I can feel my heart beating faster. I've never been inside his house before, even though he's been to my house almost every day to deliver bread and other baked goods. There just didn't seem to be a reason.

When he lets me in, I see that it's almost an exact replica of my house. I guess at one time Haymitch's was too, but now all of his junk and the general stench he leaves in his wake makes it nearly unrecognizable.

In the center of Peeta's living room is a jumble of trunks and boxes. _My things_. And not just from the train. These are things from my house that I brought with me from the Seam. My father's hunting jacket, along with the entire coat rack is sitting in the center of the room.

"You mother told me that after the wedding aired, the Peacekeepers came to your house to enforce the new housing assignment," Peeta says.

It's one of the rules in District 12 that married couples are assigned a house, usually the husband's if he has one or a vacant one. If's free if the house is in the Seam. If you want one in town, the rent for one month is roughly the same as what a coal miner makes in six. I've never thought about what they do if both people own houses.

My eyes find his blue ones. "Where are my mother and sister? Did they send them to the Seam?"

Peeta shakes his head. "They're at your house. It's still yours. But according to the rules, I guess you've got to stay here." Peeta lets out a loud yawn and loosens the knot on his tie before slipping it from around his neck. He looks down at the strip of fabric in his hand before looking back me with a sad smile. "Good thing this house has a lot of rooms. Take your pick. "

It takes me a moment to figure out what he's saying, but by then he's heading up the stairs. When he's disappeared from sight, I go over to the coat rack and take down my father's coat. I pull it on over my dress and breathe in the scent of old leather and fresh green woods. The smell makes me homesick, not for a house yards away, but for the time when my father was alive and things made sense.

Instead of finding a room, I go curl up on a nearby sofa and kick my shoes off. I feel one of the seams in the dress split, sending sequins clattering to the hardwood floor, but I don't care. I bury my face in the soft cushion and finally let out the tears I've been holding in for weeks.


	5. Chapter 5

Chapter 5

The sound of my own screams wake me from a nightmare of vague, shadowy figures chasing me through an endless maze. I lie there, half paralyzed, waiting for the ghosts to dissipate from my mind. In the graying light, my eyes make out the nice bureau, the little vanity table and chair and the tasteful curtains. Everything's the same as it is at my house, down to the pattern on the chairs, but the similarity isn't comforting, it's disturbing.

If this were a normal day, my mother would be downstairs now, making breakfast for us all. I'd go out hunting, perhaps bring in a couple late season turkeys for Hazelle, do a little trading in the Hob.

My heart aches with longing for a day that simple, a day like the morning of the Victory Tour, when I imagined the Capitol's only tools for oppression were torture and murder, but the weeks between then and now seem like a lifetime.

I was just getting used to being that Katniss Everdeen, victor of the Hunger Games. It wasn't a perfect fit, but I was learning to deal with it. Despite the new house and new clothes and the empty days, I knew who I was. I was still just a girl from the Seam.

But now, according to the Capitol, my name isn't even my own anymore. _Katniss Mellark_. I am a stranger to myself.

In a way, it's kind of a death, like Katniss Everdeen really did die in the Games after all. I think it would have been easier if I had died. Died and let Peeta live. But then, he would be alone now, lost in a way I could never explain to anyone else, but that I know with a certainty because I would have been the same way. Deep inside I know that If only one of us had survived, it would have destroyed the other.

I pull my arm up from where it rests beneath the blanket and see the golden gleam of Peeta's ring on my finger, an oddly warm color in the dark room. I don't know if it was his choice, the one I gave him is its match, slipped into my hand during the ceremony, but I can imagine Peeta picking out this ring.

The wedding bands of the Capitol are usually gaudy, ridiculous with huge diamonds, some people even have the stones implanted right into the skin, but this ring is beautiful, elegantly etched with leaves and branches. We don't do rings in 12, not even the people who can afford it, so it's just another way the Capitol has stamped us. I consider taking it off, throwing it out the window, getting rid of this proof of the Capitol's ownership, but I don't.

Who knows when I might need to run, leave the district quickly and quietly? The gold might come in handy for a trade.

The cover slips down further and I realize I'm still dressed in Cinna's gown. Kicking the blanket and sheets off, I survey the damage. Several rows of sequins have fallen off, broken away from the dress to hang in tangled knots. A seam or two was damaged last night, but now I'm sure it's beyond repair. I let out a loud sigh. Great, more to feel guilty about. I'll have to tell Cinna about the dress on the phone.

I get up, pulling the ruined dress over my head before padding over to the bureau in my slip. I open the drawers, searching through each, but find them all empty. I head over to the closet, but there's nothing there either. There's no sign that this bedroom actually belongs to anyone. Peeta must have carried me here after I fell asleep on the couch. Not to his bedroom, but to one of the extras.

I'm trying to digest what that means, when I find a single blue flannel robe tucked into the chest at the foot of the bed, probably the long forgotten property of some dead victor or maybe a Capitol official who used the place during a visit.

It's old and has a faintly musty smell of mothballs, but I wrap myself in it anyway. It fall to my ankles. The belt is missing so I have to hold it closed.

The house is quiet as I make my way barefoot down the empty hall. I don't know which of these doors Peeta is behind so I don't try any of them. Besides, I don't want to invade the privacy he's apparently so intent on keeping.

I make my way downstairs and at first it seems empty, too, but then I hear the shuffle of wood against wood. Following the sound, I find a large alcove. In my house across the courtyard, this would be the dining room, but Peeta has stripped the room of most of its furniture.

I find him sitting on a stool behind an easel. He's dressed much like I am, in a robe, but his is over a pair of striped pajamas. He has a pencil in his hand, drawing quickly over a large canvas. I watch him draw, outlining what looks like a forest scene. I can see the rough sketch of trees and stones.

"Good morning," I say. The words seem inadequate somehow, like there should be more to say now that we are finally alone. I rack my mind for something else, but find nothing.

The hand with the pencil pauses on the canvas for a second before he turns to look at me.

"More like good evening," Peeta says. "It's after four."

I take another look out the window. What I mistook for the light of morning is really sunset. "It felt like I slept much longer."

"Nightmares?" he asks. His voice is gentle with sympathy.

I nod tightly before turning away from him and wrapping the robe tighter around my waist. If he wanted to be sympathetic, he would have been there when I woke up screaming, but then, I can't make up my mind if I would have wanted him.

I stand there in silence for a moment, wondering what I should do. I know I could leave now, go to my sanctuary in the woods, but that would mean walking through town first. The market will be filled with people just getting off, coal miners ready to spend their hard won coin, merchants bargaining the final sells of the day. I'm not ready to face that kind of scrutiny.

I spot an overstuffed chair against one of the walls. "Can I stay here for a while? I promise I won't distract you."

"You've been distracting me for years, why stop now?" Peeta says, his mouth curving into a half smile. We share a look and I find myself smiling back. It feels strange to smile after everything's that's happened, like finding coin you thought you'd lost forever. Something in his eyes shifts too, lighting up in a way I haven't seen since before the Victory Tour.

"Not on purpose," I say, archly. "It's not my fault if you're easily distracted."

"Did you know I walked into a wall the one and only day you came to school with your hair down? I told everyone I needed glasses. Then I had to convince the teacher not to send a note home to my father," Peeta says and his smile fades away to something softer, more wistful. "Anyway, I'm used to you distracting me. I'd rather have the distraction than not have you."

"Then I can stay?"

"It's your home now, everything I have is yours."

Something hitches in my throat at his answer. I know we're supposed to be married, but our relationship is so convoluted and I never know which parts are supposed to be real.

I walk over to the chair to hide my nervousness. I sit down, curling my feet underneath me as I watch Peeta go back to his canvas, putting down the pencil and picking up a paint brush.

I haven't ever really seen him paint. I'd sort of written it off the same way I did with singing. Painting seemed like a huge waste of time. At least you can eat the fancy cakes.

Looking at him now, I think I was wrong. And not just because these skills saved him in the arena. There's a steadiness, a focus there that I envy. In a way, it reminds me of watching Gale set traps, the precision, the delicate, almost unseen movements that make all the difference in the final product.

Outside, the colors of sunset are finally giving way to the blue-black hues of true night and when Peeta gets up to turn on the electric lights, I really get a good look at the painting. Peeta has a wonderful eye for detail. Here on canvas, Peeta has perfectly replicated the misty orange and gold that just finished lighting up the sky, peeking through a still penciled in grove of pine and oak. The forest at sunset, then. Or maybe sunrise, like I thought when I got out of bed.

It slowly dawns on me that the only forest Peeta well enough to paint is the one from the arena. Was the sky ever truly that peaceful in the arena? I remember those mornings, waking up after a few hours of furtive sleep and those evening, waiting for the Capitol's anthem and the roll call of the dead.

The memories are so chilling, so capable of dragging me back into that place of nightmares, that I force them away and say the first thing that comes to my mind. "Why sunset?"

"What?" Peeta says, pulling his eyes away from the canvas to face me.

I cringe a little, realizing I've done just what I promised him I wouldn't. "I mean you said your favorite color was orange like sunset," I continue. "Why sunset and not sunrise?"

Peeta's eyebrows rise until I can't see them beneath the fringe of his bangs. He looks surprised, like he didn't think I would remember what he said.

"I never really thought about it before." He tilts his head up to look at the ceiling like the answers might be written in the plaster. "The color's not quite the same," he says after a moment. "And they don't _feel_ the same, if that makes sense. The orange is stronger at sunrise, more chaotic."

"Like fire," I add.

Peeta snorts softly, "Yeah, fire and Effie hair. I guess I like my fires a little tamer. And there's something about watching the stars come out. It's like the world becomes something new..."

His words trail off and I'm left with this image in my head of this changing sky and how the sunset isn't an ending but a beginning. We lapse into silence again and Peeta goes back to painting.

I want nothing more but to sit here in the calm of this room, away from everything, even my mother and sister who deserve an account of the past week's madness, but I know I have to see them, if no one else. And it might has well be now.

I sneak quietly out of the room so as not to disturb Peeta again.

All of my things are still packed in boxes in the front room. They're unlabeled and when I open the first one I see that the items have been haphazardly tossed in. Books are mixed in with shoes in one box, unidentifiable glass shards line the bottom of another. It's going to take weeks to sort through all this.

After about fifteen minutes of searching, I finally locate a box of clothes. I drag out a white sweater and gray pants as well as a pair of shoes. They're a newer pair, brought with my Victor's money, but that's probably for the best. It wouldn't due for anyone to see me dressed like I've been to the Seam right now, even on the short walk between Peeta's house and mine.

I quickly dress, maneuvering into the clothes under the shield of the robe. I finger comb my hair and braid it back up before heading out onto the cobblestone path that connect all the houses of the Victor's Village. It's colder than it was last night and the clear sky that had been so brilliant earlier, has morphed into gray snow clouds. I walk faster to keep myself warm and I'm at my house in less than five minutes.

My mother has the door opened before I even knock. Without a word, she pulls me into a hug and I let her, indulging in the rare comfort of my mother's arms around me. Yesterday at the train station and afterwards at the party, my mother had been subdued, smiling politely, but now she strokes my hair and in a tear soaked voice whispers, "I'm so sorry" over and over in my ear. Another pair of arms goes around my waist. Prim. She buries her head against my ribcage and I untangle an arm to it wrap around her, too.

This is why I agreed to President Snow's proposal. This is what I had to keep safe. Seeing my family safe and sound makes whatever humiliation I've suffered worth it. Snow would have killed them if I hadn't convinced the districts of my love for Peeta. I understood it before, but now, holding them in my arms, I see clearly how much I had to lose. I can feel the tears welling up in my own eyes and I have to fight hard to keep them back.

I'm the first to pull away, dragging them out of the cold doorway and into the house. My mother sends Prim off to the kitchen to make tea while she sits me down in one of the chairs and pulls another close. She looks me over, her eyes critical, like I'm one of her patients.

"Are you okay, Katniss?" my mother asks. "After they showed the wedding, then…what they showed _later_…I wasn't sure what they'd done to you."

I haven't had a real conversation with my mother in years, maybe not ever. Even after the Games, it always seemed easier to keep her in the dark. She'd crumbled under the weight of my father's death and I don't want her to have some kind of setback, not when Prim still needs her. But, my mother isn't stupid. She knows that I would never up and elope with Peeta and that the Capitol never inadvertently broadcasts anything to the districts.

"When President Snow was here before the Victor Tour," I start slowly. "He told me that there had been some… unrest in the districts because of what I did with the berries. He wanted us to convince the districts that I was in love Peeta."

"And…marrying him worked?" she asks wonderingly. There's pity in her eyes for me and embarrassment, but something else too. Gratitude maybe? She must know that Snow wouldn't have stopped with killing only me and Peeta if this plan hadn't worked.

I nod. "It must have. Either that or the show after."

"Oh, Katniss" she says, reaching over to take my hands. "Can you live with this? Peeta a very nice boy, but…"

Prim comes in with the tea and it stops my mother's words. I'm glad. I don't really want to go into any more detail and I already know what she'll say about Peeta. My parents had a love story, epic and romantic. She defied her parents to marry the man she loved and went to live the Seam. Marrying for anything less must seem horribly wrong. She won't understand that I did marry for love—love of her and Prim. Gale, who Snow would surely have killed as well.

After serving the tea and little sandwiches that do nothing to alleviate my hunger, Prim cuddles up to me and we sit by the fireplace. She doesn't say anything about what happened in the Capitol except that she thought the dress was beautiful.

I'm almost asleep when my mother pulls back one of the curtains to show us a world of swirling white.

"It's getting bad out there," she says. "You might want to leave now…if you're planning on heading back tonight."

"I think I'd better," I say. It's tempting to stay here, but the Peacekeepers made it clear that they're watching. I wonder if the order to move my things to Peeta's house came all the way from President Snow or if Cray just thought it would be funny.

I take one of my mother's old coats and head out into what is quickly turning into a blizzard. The snow is already up to my knees and it takes all my energy to plow through it. I can't even see the cobblestones that mark my path. A walk that took five minutes from start to finish has quickly eaten up the better part of twenty minutes.

Midway through the walk, the streetlights flicker twice and die. Electricity is better in town and in the Village than in the Seam, but we still get sporadic blackouts. I trudge along in the pitch darkness. I'm closer to Peeta' house now anyway, although I can barely make it out in the snow.

The lights come on just as I reach Peeta's. I pound the snow from my shoes before walking in. It's strange just barging into his house without knocking, even though I do it to Haymitch all the time. He never hears anything. But with Peeta, it is different. It feels intimate.

Peeta's nowhere to be seen and I'm wondering if he's retreated to his room again when the front door bursts open behind me.

"Katniss," Peeta shouts. "Are you here?"

He spots me a second later and I feel the heat of his eyes all the way across the room. His hair and clothes are heavy with snow, but it doesn't stop him as he strides over to stand in front of me. His blue eyes sweep over me, searching for some sign of injury.

"Katniss," he says, letting out a relieved breath. He's standing so close to me I can feel the erratic strum of his heartbeat in my own chest. His hands grip my shoulders. "You left and it started snowing and the light went out…why didn't you tell me you were going somewhere?"

My first instinct is to pull away from him, but I can see the worry in his pinched features and I think about how, if our positions were reversed and I thought he was missing in a snow storm, I'd be worried, too. I just didn't think about saying anything. I haven't had to explain where I'm going to anybody in years. My mother never asks anymore, not since I became the family's breadwinner. Even between me and Gale, meeting up is casual, we hunt together when we can. If one of us doesn't show, the other hunts alone.

So, instead of pulling away from him, I lean closer until my head rests on his chest. I feel some of the tension go out of his body and his arms encircle me. "I went to see my mother and Prim."

"I know that, now," he says roughly. "I was just there."

I pull back enough to look into his face, "I didn't mean to make you worry."

"Yeah, I know," he breathes. "I thought you might have gone out to the woods…or to the Seam. I almost went there first. I was halfway to town before I turned around."

I can tell he thought I might have gone out to meet Gale, that he would be the first person I wanted to see. But nothing could be farther from the truth.

"I wouldn't have gone that far without telling you," I say, although I don't know if that's true. "And I'd have to be an idiot to go out there in this weather."

"I _might_ have overreacted," Peeta murmurs.

"Maybe a little," I say. I step out of the shelter of his arms. The snow still dusting the shoulders of his coat has started to drip into my hair, cold little droplets like tears.

"But, with the weather I was afraid something had happen to you," he finishes.

I don't know what to say to that, so I brush the melting snow from his shoulders. He grabs my hand and kisses it, just the way he did when we were in the Games, just like my father used to with my mother.


	6. Chapter 6

Chapter 6

I slip though the quiet Sunday morning streets of the Seam, my new boots making crisp intents in the soot stained snow. There's not many people around yet, things don't usually get started on Sundays until almost noon and it's just past eight now. I don't blame them—why get up early on your only day off?

I make my way to my old house. The Snow's been cleared from around the walkway and porch, and when I look around I see it's one of the only cleared places this side of the district. All of the other houses are still buried beneath the snow drifts. I'm puzzled for a second, but then I figure out that my mother must have paid someone to come out and see to it. It's a good thing, too. If I'd had to shove through feet of snow, I might have just turned back around.

I open the door and step into the empty front room. I take a breath of the dusty air and sink into a chair by the cold fireplace and begin working my boots off.

It feels good to be out of the Village, trapped as I've been by the weather for almost a week. It's not that it's been awful, being stuck with Peeta, but we're still almost strangers. We tiptoe around each other, not the formal coolness of before the Victory Tour, just a wariness of each other's boundaries.

And of course, what happened the night of our wedding hangs heavy in the air, too.

I pull on a pair of thick, sturdy pants and my hunting boots. I take off the fancy coat I wore on top of my father's hunting jacket and hang it on the hook by the door and then I'm off, across the meadow, under the fence and into the woods for the first time in over a month.

Once I make it past the fence, I see I'm not alone. Several larger footprints mark the snow. It's strange, Gale's usually more careful than this. He's the one who taught me to cover my tracks in case a Peacekeeper decides to patrol, but I guess when you only have one day to hunt, you don't have time to take every precaution.

My heart gives a shallow pang of guilt. I'd promised to help Gale's family, but with the tour and my marriage afterward, I've missed weeks and weeks of hunting. Even though Gale had been there for my family during the Games, making sure they didn't starve.

I follow his footsteps, trudging through the snow, to our old meeting place and then beyond to a blind we use during the winter. It's a small cave, really just a crevice, but it's warmer than sitting in a tree, especially when there are two of us. He's up in an instant, pointing the way around one of his hidden traps.

His face is closed off as he stands in front of me and I feel the tension, the anger coming off him in waves. The guilt I felt earlier becomes a living thing, gnawing at my chest like a wild animal, making it hard to breath.

"Does your husband know you're out here?" he says and I can hear the hurt in his voice. He's trying to hide it, but I've known him too long to miss it.

"He's not my husband," I start, but Gale cuts me off with a glare.

"The whole _world_ was invited to the honeymoon, Katniss," he grounds out. "So, I don't think that's true. At least not legally."

"It was all part of the act!" I yell.

"Was it an act, Katniss? What it really? Because it looked real to me. It would've taken a hell of a good actress to fake what I saw!"

His eyes scan me with a look of contempt, of betrayal, and I feel my whole body heat with humiliation, my objections trapped in my throat, as dry and suffocating as cotton balls. Gale will never know what's it's like to be violated this way. To have everyone know something so intimate about you, without your consent and against your will.

I have to remind myself that I came out here for this, to meet him, give him an explanation, knowing he'd be hurt. Gale Hawthorne is my oldest friend, my hunting partner and more than anything, I don't want to lose everything we had.

I take a long shuddering breath. "We didn't have a choice. They gave us something, some kind of drug to make us act like that."

"Must've been some drug," he says.

"You don't know what happened. Snow threatened to have you killed, maybe even both our families!"

Gale goes perfectly still, watching me. "Then tell me what happened."

I go through the whole story then, the visit from Snow, the threats, the unrest in the districts, and then our engagement, the marriage, and Snow's proposal. I don't leave anything out, but I can't look at him as I talk and the strain between us grows.

"And it worked," Gale says. "Stopped the uprisings?"

I nod. "Enough for Snow."

Gale turns around away from me then, his fingers raking agitatedly through his hair. "You had a chance to help the districts. You could've done so much. But instead you helped the Capitol keep everything just the way it is!"

"I couldn't have done _anything_. You think a few people yelling in the streets is going to change things? You don't know what it's like in the other districts. You don't know what the Capitol is capable of."

"Oh, I know what they're capable of, and I know that there are people willing to fight back! People in the mines, people in the other districts and they were looking to you."

"What should I have done, then? Let them kill you? Kill my family?" I shake my head. "What's done is done and I won't say I regret saving your lives."

At that, he turns back to me, his eyes the bleak gray of the winter sky. "So you don't regret it? Marrying Peeta? Sleeping with him?"

"I didn't say that," I counter. "I said I don't regret what I had to do to save your lives."

"Do you love him?" Gale asks flatly and now I'm the one turning away. "Do you love Peeta?"

"I did what I had to do!"

"That's not what I asked."

"What do you want me to say? What do you want me to do?" I ask. "You were right when you said it before, legally, me and Peeta are married."

"And you just happen to enjoy sleeping with him."

"We _sleep_ in separate bedrooms. The only time anything happened was in the Capitol."

He digests this new and I can see some of the anger go out of him, a relaxing of his shoulders, of the starkness in his eyes. He steps closer to me and his voice is much softer. "And, what are you going to do? Live like that forever?"

"I don't have much of a choice, do I?"

"You have a choice." He strong hands reach out to my shoulders, pulling me closer until his lips brush my temple. "We could still leave. You said it yourself, Snow's satisfied, our families are safe. We could just...disappear."

I look into those gray eyes, so like my own, and I see the future he wants. Us, together, away from the pressure of our families, the backbreaking work he endures in the mines, and all the endless machinations of the Capitol.

And it's tempting, this future he's laid out. I think of those long days out in the woods, with only him for company, when we relied only on each other. But then those gray eyes morph into a guileless blue.

"It's still the same problem, we can't leave our families," I say stepping back. "Who would take care of them?"

"There's no rush. We'll wait for spring and in the meantime, I'll train Vick to hunt. Prim does fine with her goat and your mother's started back with healing. He closes the gap I created between us. "This could work. There's a place I've heard about. A place we could go. I'm not sure yet, but I think it's safe."

"And Snow?" I ask. "You think he'll just let me go and leave my family alone?"

Gale gives a half grin. "I think he'll be glad to get rid of you. Make up some story about how you died. Bury the memory and move on. That's what I'd do."

"No," I shake my head. "Snow hates me. He'd torture everyone to find out where we've gone. Our families. Peeta and Haymitch. Everything I've done would be for nothing. We can't leave them."

He pauses for a moment, studying me. I can almost see his mind working, weighing the options, judging my resolve. "Then, we'll just have to make due here." Before I know what's happening, Gale has my face cupped in his hands and he's kissing me, his lips warm and firm against mine. For one heartbeat, I don't know what to do, but then I'm pushing him way, untangling myself from the circle of his arms.

We're both breathing hard and I reach gloved fingers up to touch my lips. I have to stop myself from wiping my hand across my lips, trying to erase the evidence of our kiss.

"I can't do this. I _won't_ do this." The words are shaky, but I get them out. Everything in my world is already so confused. Adding whatever this is Gale wants would be madness. And beyond that there's Peeta. I don't want to hurt him either.

Gale temper flares back up. "So, you're going to let the Capitol win. Let them have everything their way, decide your whole future!" He brushes past, going back to the blind to collect his game sack before looking over at me. "You're the last person I thought would turn out a coward."

And then he's gone, his long legs striding deeper into the snowy forest.

I walk back the way I came, working hard to outpace his last words. Am I being a coward? At one of the endlessly decadent parties before our wedding, Peeta asked if I thought what we were doing, trying to calm the districts, was right. At the time, I was more worried about someone hearing his rebellious words, than what he had to say. But now, I wonder if I've somehow destroyed a chance for something bigger by saving my own skin. But it wasn't just for myself. It's my family too.

And Gale wasn't above just slipping away, letting everyone in the districts fend for themselves. How is that any different?

He was just mad that I wouldn't agree to it. Or to pursuing some kind of romantic relationship with him. I shake my head again. Why can't he see how much of a disaster that would be?

I leave the woods and make my way over to my house in the Seam to change back into my respectful clothes before going back to the Village. I'd left a note with Peeta, telling him that I would be here checking on the house, now that the streets were passable.

I'd found him that morning, sitting in a chair, his head resting on the table by the easel. I couldn't move him so I wrapped a blanket around his shoulders and left the note where he'd be sure to find it.

I worry about Peeta, how he walks around all night and doesn't sleep. I hear him at night, when my own nightmares are too much to bear and I want to go to him, but, if I'm honest with myself, I don't know how.

When I make it to the porch, I see that the door is half open. I frown, trying to remember if I forgotten to close it, when it flies all the way open, revealing Peeta.

He starts and almost falls back into the house. I catch his hand to keep him up and, when he's caught his balance follow him back in.

"What are you doing here?" I ask. It's strange seeing him in these surrounding, in this house where I grew up. He's been such an instrumental part of my life since the Games, it's hard to remember all the years before when he was just the boy with the bread and nothing more.

Peeta goes over to our kitchen table, adjusting his artificial leg as he sits. "I'm sorry. The door was open."

I sit in the chair next to him and have a sudden flash of memory, of sitting here with Prim cutting that half-burned loaf of bread and eating it slice by slice.

"I came, because I wanted to see if…" he pauses and even in the dim light I can see his cheeks flush. "My father called and he wanted to know if we'd…both of us, I'm mean, would like to come to Sunday dinner tonight at the bakery."


	7. Chapter 7

Chapter 7

Peeta gives me a more critical look, his eyes sweeping over my hunting boots and jacket. "You don't have to come, if you're busy."

His voice is carefully neutral, but I think I sense something more in his words. Or maybe I'm feeling guilty, although there's no reason I should be. Gale kissed me and besides, it's not like what me and Peeta have is a real relationship, right? We're playing at being married.

I have to stop from touching my lips.

"No, I'm not busy, not really," I answer.

"Well, my parents eat supper early in the winter, so we'd have to leave soon."

I cross over to the bureau where I keep a fresh change of my new clothes and pull out a pair of pants and a nice, thick sweater. Our house in the Seam is small, really one room, but my family made due with a sheet hanging from the ceiling for privacy. I slip behind the worn sheet now, hyperaware that Peeta is sitting just on the other side.

It's silly, really. He's seen me naked even before the Capitol married us. In the arena last year, we couldn't avoid seeing each other. During the Tour, we slept together in little more than our underwear.

And I not ashamed of my body—it is what it is. It's only that I don't want there to be any kind of confusion. Our relationship is confusing enough without adding casual nakedness to the pot.

I finish changing into my fancier clothes and go out to where Peeta's sitting. I stoop beside him to retrieve my boots.

"You have something in your hair," he says, plucking something from the strands. When I turn to him, questioningly, he holds out a crumpled, dry leaf.

I reach up, feeling the tangled mess my braid has become, its length dotted with forest debris. I usually tuck my braid into a cap, but in my rush to talk to Gale, I must have forgotten it. I try to re-braid it, but the tight sleeves of my sweater make reaching difficult.

"Let me," Peeta say, standing up. His strong fingers run though my hair, shaking the braid loose until it fans out across my shoulders in waves. "Do you have a brush?"

I nod and Peeta trails me to the table where I keep a brush, part of a comb and brush set my mother left here after our move. He picks up the silver handled brush and draws it gently through my hair before sectioning it.

"You know how to braid?" I ask, slightly surprised. In my family, hair braiding was always a ritual, a comforting bond, first between me and my mother, and then between me and Prim. Growing up in a house full of boys, I can't imagine why Peeta would bother to learn.

"Lots of breads are braided," he answers and as soon as he says it, I see the breads in my mind, woven in intricate patterns in the bakery window.

"Oh, the skills you can learn at a bakery," I say, lightly, thinking about last year in the Games when he used his cake-making skills to paint himself seamlessly into a stream bed.

"Almost as good as hunting in the woods." He catches my eye in the mirror, his blue ones bright with amusement, and I know he's thinking about the same thing. "Almost," he repeats softly.

I watch Peeta in the mirror, his face oddly pleased as his fingers glide across my scalp, his chest rising and falling against my back. And it feels so good I close my eyes, not wanting it to end. For a few minutes, here in this house, getting my hair braided, I am home.

"We probably need to get going," Peeta says, stepping away from me once he reaches the end of the braid.

I nod and he takes my gloved hand in his, lacing our fingers together. I can feel his warmth through the layers of fabric, almost too warm while we're still inside, but I'm grateful for it as soon as he opens the door. The air is icy, cutting straight to the bone.

I huddle next to Peeta as we make our way through the hip-high snow drifts of the Seam, avoiding the curious clusters of miners and Peacekeepers milling about the Hob and out onto the path that leads to the center of town.

In town, the cobbled streets have all been cleanly sweep, but more snow has melted since this morning and what was once prettily dusted white is now a soggy mess. There are people at the proper market, too, but it seems the respectable merchants are as intent on ignoring us as I am on ignoring them.

I'm idly watching snow drip from an icicle on the roof of the bakery when anxiety flares to life inside of me, hitting me squarely in the chest, and I have to remind myself to take regular breaths.

Why did I agree to this, again? Spend hours with people I barely know, who probably hate me after everything that's happened in the Capitol. Not to mention his mother, who I already know is a witch.

Peeta pulls me toward the side door of the bakery, the door Gale and I used to knock on while trading out of the way of paying customers. Instead of standing politely outside, waiting for the baker to come and barter for a squirrel or pheasant, Peeta yanks the door open and we step inside.

Of course, I've been inside the bakery before, especially when I was younger, when my father was alive and we could afford to shop here, but I've never seen this part before—where his family lives.

It's a lived-in space, more shabby than the storefront. Furniture, mixed styles of tables and chairs, hold family remnants, assorted trophies, photos, other odds and ends.

Peeta drapes his coat onto a hook by the door and I do the same before we walk down a hallway and into a dining room, dominated by a long rectangular table. Things are better kept in this room, nice pictures line the walls, matching chairs. It's also very warm, so I'm guessing we must be nearer to the stoves. The air smells delicious, like cinnamon and freshly baked bread.

As we walk up, Peeta's whole family comes into view, bustling about, all fair-haired and blue-eyed like him. Peeta's mother and a younger woman are setting things on the table, while his brothers and father lean around it talking, but all that stops once they see us.

I bite down hard on the inside of my lip as the thud of my heartbeat grows faster. This is the kind of situation I hate. Most of my life, I've tried to be invisible, to attract as little attention as possible. Despite what should have been great practice during the Games or on the Tour, I'm not good at meeting people.

Or conversations.

Or remembering names.

But, then again, I've never turned down a free meal in my life.

I attempt to put Effie's tutoring to use and paste on a smile, but I don't let go of Peeta's hand. He gives my hand a squeeze and greets them, easygoing and relaxed, like this isn't a terrifying experience.

After a few more overt stares, the talking resumes and they go back to their tasks. Peeta pulls out a chair and I slip into it as he sits down beside me. Under the table, out of sight, I take his hand in mine and hold on, knowing I'll have to eat with my left hand, but I don't care.

"We were wondering if Peeta would bring you home." A girl comes up to the table, dimples displayed in a smile, her hair a more golden color than the Mellark ashy blond. She's very young and very pregnant.

Peeta doesn't have any sisters, so this must be his eldest brother's wife. She's obviously from town, so I don't really know her, but I think I saw her around school. She was maybe two grades ahead of me, making her about nineteen now, like Gale.

Marriage right after your last reaping, a baby the next year—that's about normal for District 12, what everybody expects.

The girl lowers herself heavily into the seat on my other side. "I'm Mirabeth. Rieska's my husband."

I manage to make a few agreeable noises, but thankfully I don't have to say more because Peeta's father starts bringing out the food. A thick vegetable stew, a bowl of fluffy, whipped potatoes, roasted turkey, and of course, bread—loaves and loaves of perfectly golden bread.

Peeta once told me that almost all of what they ate was stale, but none of this food is. They either went all out for us or maybe Peeta made this possible with his winnings from the Games.

As the food is being passed around, Peeta's father asks him about the baking on the tour, and Peeta launches into a story about the fantastical cakes they have in the Capitol, ones with sugar flowers that actual bloom, cupcakes that float in mid-air, candies that shoot sparks.

He has them spellbound and I see again that quality he has with audiences, how people listen to him, believe him, let him paint pictures in their minds the same way he paints on a canvas.

"Why didn't you bring any of that home, Peeta?" says his other brother. "I bet we could have recreated it for the bakery."

"Didn't have time, Hagan," Peeta drawls, half rolling his eyes. Peeta and his brothers aren't like me and Prim. I've always tried to protect her, but I don't get that feeling from them, especially not this middle brother, he seems like one who plots ways to irritate.

I don't think I like him.

"With the whole getting married thing, I could see how you'd forget about your poor family," Hagan says, giving an exaggerated frown. "And speaking of family, does my new sister ever talk?"

Okay, I know I don't like him.

I struggle to find a response, but I'm saved from having to speak by a surprise source—Mirabeth.

"We can't all be champion talkers like you three," she says, turning to give me a conspiratorial smile. "After I we got married, I don't think I said anything for weeks."

"Ha, ha," her husband says, drawing his arms about her rounded middle, his lips finding the top of her head. They look in love, were probably old high school sweethearts. They're happy now, but what about in twelve years, when their child is up for the reaping and shares my last name? Or maybe they won't have to worry, maybe there'll be a better target for the Capitol's revenge...

I push the thought away, caging that mutt before it can strike. I still have a few days to wait and worrying won't help me one way or the other.

The roiling ding of the conversation continues. The whole dinner is so different from the waking nightmare I thought it would be like—cold and civil and formal.

In the Seam, you learn early to keep your head down, to be wary around Merchant kids, that talking to them will lead to trouble, most likely for you. No one here has acted like they see me differently, but maybe that's for Peeta's sake.

Peeta's mother is bringing out a dessert of apple turnovers—crisp pastry filled with cinnamon scented apples—when I begin to relax, finally letting go of Peeta's hand. I take a big bite of the turnover, the pastry buttery and flakey, and I think it might not be such a bad thing, getting to know Peeta's family. I realize I could like them, even Hagan, if he ever stops talking.

I'm so relax that when Peeta's mother asks me to help her in the kitchen, I'm caught entirely by surprise. The woman had been distant the whole meal, not the benign quiet of her husband, but silently watchful.

"She's our guest," Peeta counters smoothly. "She shouldn't have to work. I can help."

"Now, Peeta, I haven't had much of a chance to chat with Katniss, the two of us alone," his mother chides. "I don't think I've even had the opportunity to thank her for saving my son's life or for bringing our family such…distinction."

I feel Peeta stiffen beside me and it's almost funny—this is the first time I've ever seen him struggle for words.

"I don't mind," I say. I get up, not sure how I'm supposed to act. If this were a Capitol dinner, I'd probably kiss him now, but am I trying to convince his family that this whole thing is real, too? I hesitate before brushing my fingers across his hand and following his mother into the kitchen.

The kitchen for the family turns out to be a small alcove in a corner of the bakery, set apart from the baking equipment and brick encased wood burning stoves.

Peeta's mother starts piling dishes into the sink and I take a second to look at her. She's nothing like Peeta. They share features, a tilt of the eyebrow here, the shape of their eyes—it's the same, but the effect is different. Peeta's familiar warmth is missing in her.

"So, you were the girl who tried to steal from my garbage cans," she says, conversationally. "I didn't connect the dots until last year, during the Games." She hands me a dish towel.

A vague feeling of shame jumbles with anger in my throat, choking off anything I might want to say. But what is there to say, really? I had no defense for her taunts then and I still don't.

She turns on the sink facet and the hiss of running water fills the silence between us.

"And I know you don't love my son," she adds.

I want to deny these words, too, but I don't know how I feel, can't separate anything I might have with Peeta from the Capitol's machinations. I look down at my hands and grab a plate from the dirty, soapy water, hot from the tap, like we have in the Victor's Village, like we didn't have growing up in the Seam.

For the first time, I feel awkward being in this house and out of nowhere, I have the urge to cry. I force the feeling back down.

"But," his mother continues, her voice amused. "You saved him. So, I think we're even for that bread he stole for you."

"You hit him because of it," I say, finding my voice, the words coming out hard and harsh. I remember the bruise he had the day after he threw me the bread, the blow had to be violent, swelling the eye shut.

"I _thought_ he was being careless," she challenges. "If I'd thought he was giving food away, well, I probably would have hit him twice." She turns to look at me, her eyes the icy blue color of a frozen lake, and can't help thinking how one color can look so different. "It's not because I don't care about him, I do, but he's not like you, he's always been too soft."

"His kindness saved me then and in the Games, made me owe him," I say, bristling at her words. "It's the only reason he _did_ survive."

"And how has being kind been for you?" she asks, turning back to the dishes and soaping a cup. "Volunteering for your sister got you thrown in the Hunger Games and nearly killed. Now you've come to our good president's…attention…along with my boy. Would you do it all again?"

"Yes," I answer. It comes out as a whisper, but I know it's true. Volunteering for Prim, saving Peeta, protecting all our families—didn't I tell Gale I couldn't regret it?

"Then you're as much a fool as Peeta," she says, giving a short laugh. "But maybe you've got enough skill to keep him alive through whatever else the president has planned."

"Don't you think Snow's done enough?" I ask. Besides the possibility of our child in the arena, I can't imagine a new scheme from Snow. And why? The uprisings have been squashed, our most intimate moment broadcast to the world as entertainment, as punishment—what else could he do to us?

Peeta's mother shrugs. "Ask Haymitch," she says. "Your mentor might have a hint or two about what to expect."

We finish the dishes in silence, but her words rattle around in my head—_ask Haymitch_. Does she think we'll become alcoholics? Is that it? She thinks we'll turn out like Haymitch, used up by the Games and hating everyone? Or is there something else?

Afterwards, we return to the others and Peeta is waiting with our coats. He rushes us out, saying quick goodbyes to his family before we're back in the cold air.

"Whatever my mother said to you," Peeta says, tramping along beside me. "Ignore it." His face is closed off, focused off ahead.

"It wasn't bad," I say, linking my gloved fingers with his bare ones. He didn't stop to put his gloves back on.

"Really?" he asks, his voice surprised. He looks over at me, gauging my reaction.

I think about what it must have been like, growing up with a mother who calls you hateful names, hits you, punishes you for helping others. And I think about my mother, turned into an empty shell by her husband's death, who couldn't care for her children, who left Prim and me to starve.

What a pair we two make.

"No as bad as I thought it would be," I amend.

Peeta makes a soft snorting sound and squeezes my hand. We get to the village and I consider checking up on my mother and Prim or even Haymitch, but I decide against it. The day has left me drained and all I want is to climb under warm sheets and sleep.

But later, when I'm alone in my bed, I regret not going to check up on Haymitch, not following up on what Peeta's mother said, because my dreams are filled with new nightmares, new ways the Capitol could inflict terror.

I spend most of the night staring up at the ceiling as I listen to Peeta heavy footsteps pacing the halls.


	8. Chapter 8

Chapter 8

"So its flour, yeast, eggs…" I say, sitting on the counter, my legs tapping lightly against the wooden cabinets beneath me. I watch as Peeta starts on cheese buns, cracking two eggs into a hollowed out mound of flour. He whips the eggs with his fingers before slowly adding in milk from a measuring cup.

"Sugar, salt, milk, cheese…and a secret ingredient," Peeta finishes.

"A secret ingredient…?" I prod.

"It's a secret," he says, grinning.

I usually let him bake in peace, but I've been restless since Prim came over after with the news that there would be a mandatory program on television tonight. I'm dreading it.

Any new intrusion from the Capitol is worth dreading, especially now that things have settled into a kind of normal. I would appreciate a few days without surprises. The one last week, wasn't bad though. A week ago, instead of nightmares, cramps woke me up in the middle of night. I've never been more relieved to see blood.

"I thought we weren't keeping secrets," I tease.

"Not just my secret," he says, his voice softening. "It's a Mellark family recipe. There are rules."

I'm about to remind him that I'm in the Mellark family when I stop. But, I'm not family, not really. Not without a toasting. It doesn't matter anyway, not like I'm ever going to make cheese buns. And I know this isn't the life he wanted.

But, then again, Peeta doesn't tell me what he wants anymore. He isn't freezing me out, not like right after the Games, but he keeps his emotions to himself. He doesn't push the romantic angle, hasn't touched me beyond a hug. I think it's for the best.

I slip off the counter, suddenly ready to get the Capitol's programming over and done. "How long until the announcement?"

"Fifteen minutes," Peeta answers. He's got two rounds of dough formed now, kneading one in each hand, rhythmically shaping and reshaping the dough. When the loaves are plump and smooth, Peeta whips out a towel, covering the dough so it can proof in the warm kitchen.

While he washes up, I go into the sitting room where Peeta keeps his television. The government approves all programming and it's either pro-Capitol propaganda or reruns of past Hunger Games, which, if you think about it, is the same thing. Most people in District 12 do their best to avoid it if they can.

At seven twenty-five, I turn on the television and, such enough, they're just finishing up an old Hunger Games—it's the one where Johanna Mason is named victor. She's getting her crown from President Snow when that program abruptly cuts off to reveal a beaming Caesar Flickerman amidst a boisterous crowd in front of the Training Center. I'm relieved. I'd rather see Caesar any day than look at the president with his snake's eyes and puffy lips.

Peeta comes in and sits down while Caesar babbles about all the excitement of the last year. And then they're showing images of us, me and Peeta in the arena, then on the Victory Tour and finally at our wedding. Somehow, it's worse with Peeta sitting next to me and I can't look at him.

Caesar goes on to talk about the unfortunate incident that happened during on our wedding night, and I'm holding my breath, terrified that Caesar's going to play the video again, that this announcement is really just another chance to humiliate us, but then Caesar's changing the subject.

"We can't wait to have the lovebirds back in the Capitol for the seventy-fifth anniversary of the Hunger Games, can we?" Caesar asks and the crowd cheers. "Yes, this year will be extra special with our third Quarter Quell!" The cries of the crowd only get louder. "Let's cut now, to President Snow for a special announcement!"

I turn to Peeta. A Quarter Quell happens for every twenty-five year anniversary, so neither of us was born for the last one—all I really know is that Haymitch won the last one. "My father told me they've planned out all the Quells when they started the Games. The president reads what they've going to do off a card," he says.

After a few shots of the excited crowd, the anthem plays and President Snow takes the stage. My stomach lurches at the sight of him, and for a moment I think I'm really going to be sick.

Snow starts his speech, talking about the Dark Days and the laws governing the Quarter Quell, how every twenty-five years they were to have an exalted Games of special magnificence, but all I can think about is the smell of blood that must be on his breath as he puffs every word out into the cold Capitol air.

He goes on about the other Quarter Quells, how the first forced each district to choose their tributes, how the second doubled the number. I wrap my arms around myself, thinking about what it would be like in those years. "And now we honor our third Quarter Quell," the president says.

A small boy dressed in white, no more than six or seven, brings a box of envelopes, yellowed with age, up to the president. Snow produces the enveloped marked with a flourished 75 in gold foil, opens the flap, and slips out an equally yellowed card. "On the seventy-fifth anniversary, as a reminder that the youngest amongst us suffered the heaviest burden of the rebellion, all tributes will be reaped from candidates in their first eligible year."

"He means twelve-year-olds," Peeta says, almost to himself. "Every tribute."

For a moment, I'm completely, selfishly relieved—at thirteen, Prim will be completely safe. The president isn't punishing me by rigging the reaping so that her name is called. Seeing Prim reaped a second time, with me powerless to stop it, has lurked in the back of my mind. It was always a long shot—Snow knows no one would buy the same girl being reaped two years in a row, but the fear was still real.

Then suddenly, I'm remembering the way Prim looked last year, walking to the platform in front of the Justice Building, her shirt untucked from her skirt, the way Rue looked on that dilapidated stage in District 11, alone in creaking wind and I realize _all_ the tributes will be Prim. Each one will be Rue.

And, for the girl reaped here, I'll be her mentor.

I watch the on-screen crowds in the Capitol roar with rapturous excitement over the president's announce until my eyes blur with tears and I feel Peeta's arms go around me. He's saying something, but I can't focus on it, not through the self-loathing.

Because this is all my fault.

Helping Snow, agreeing to calm the uprisings, smothering the spark that could have changed all this, I can never again separate myself from the Capitol's crimes. From now on, I will have a hand each and every atrocity. Gale was right; I am a worthless coward.

I close my eyes against Peeta's shoulder, drawing in the scent of baking bread. He feels so warm that I sink into his embrace, into the strength of his arms around me, his hands running down the length of my spine.

When I open my eyes again, it is dark and I have my cheek pressed against Peeta's chest, his heart a steady beat beneath me. We are twined together on the couch in his sitting room. I prop myself up and look at him. Asleep Peeta looks so young, like the little boy who threw me the bread, his pale eyelashes casting shadows against his cheeks.

Everything in my sleep-heavy limbs resists, but I disentangle myself from him. For a second, his arm snakes out and it's like he's reaching for me in his sleep, but then he shifts over onto his side.

I look out the window. The sun won't be up for a few hour so Haymitch is probably still awake. I have to talk to him. If I wait until morning, Peeta will want to come with me and I need to do this alone. I don't think Peeta will approve of the subject matter.

I grab a light jacket from the coat rack, slip it on, and tuck my braid into a cap. When I get to the door I look back over to Peeta's sleeping form. An image of him in the arena, helpless, knocked out by sleeping syrup flashes through my mind.

It makes sense that I'd remember the day Haymitch helped me trick Peeta to save his life.

With any luck, Haymitch will agree to do it again today.


	9. Chapter 9

Chapter 9

When I get to Haymitch's house, I don't bother knocking. I steel myself against the stench and shove the door open, pushing hard against the trash piled high on the opposite side. A lone lamp in the corner of the room illuminates Haymitch sitting in in a tattered and ratty chair, wearing an equally tattered and ratty plaid robe, a bottle of white liquor clutched in his hand.

I stride across the room, the crackle of broken glass slick beneath my feet. That's normal in Haymitch's house; he's always throwing one thing or another. I avoid the largest pieces and come to a stop in front of him.

Haymitch blinks up at me. "What are you doing here," he slurs. The reeking fumes emanating from him make me take three steps back, skidding a little over the shards of broken glass in my retreat. He's far gone tonight and my heart sinks. I don't need him sober, but I need him coherent.

"We need to take a walk," I say.

"What?" he says. He's still trying to focus on my face when he abruptly slumps forward, slipping headlong into unconsciousness.

I lean forward, holding my breath against the smell, and try to inject my voice with urgency. "We need to talk. Now."

Haymitch slowly opens those Seam gray eyes, finally finding my face. He's quiet for a long moment. "Okay, sweetheart, where do you want to go? It's long past midnight, so Peacekeepers might question a little stroll to town. And you can be damn sure they'd notice."

I bite my lip. He's right, but we can't talk here. I'm sure the Capitol watches the houses in the Victor's Village, too. "The yard, then."

A long-suffering sigh escapes Haymitch's mouth and he stands up. "Fine."

He half stumbles, half drags himself through the kitchen, out to the screened in bay porch, and finally out into the far corner of his yard. I follow after him, making sure he doesn't break his neck on the debris littering the floor.

Outside, the air is fresh and cool after the stink of Haymitch's house, stark in the stilll darkness. The grass is still a barren straw color, but in a few weeks, it will turn green with the coming of spring. People come in from town to take care of the village's lawns. If it were up to Haymitch, this place would be as putrid as the house.

Haymitch leans heavily on the trunk of the lone oak tree in his yard, his body lost in the shadowy gloom. "What's so urgent that you had to yank me out of the house in the middle of the night?"

I take a deep breath. "I want to start an uprising."

Haymitch barks out a laugh. "That squirrel's been shot, sweetheart. It's dead and gone."

"If we have an uprising here, the other districts might hear about it and start up again," I say. Pulling out those berries sparked uprisings all over Panem and that was without me trying. Now, I plan to act purposefully against the Capitol, stoke the flames I attempted to put out.

I search Haymitch's face for a reaction, but it is blank, bored even. "And what does the boy think of all this?" he says.

"He doesn't know, not yet." Not ever, if I have I my way. It'd be safer for him not to know. If anything goes wrong and they catch me, torture me, not knowing anything will give him a chance at survival. The same goes for my mother and Prim—if I'm captured, the less they know the better.

Besides, how can I tell Peeta, after all we sacrificed to stave off the uprisings, that I've changed my mind?

"Yeah, because keeping things from him worked so well last time," Haymitch drawls.

"That was different," I say. But I know it's not. Back on the Tour, I kept Snow's threat a secret from Peeta and he was furious, angrier than I have ever seen him.

"I don't think your husband will see it that way," Haymitch says drily.

When he says husband, I glare at him, but he keeps talking. "Besides, an uprising would never work, not here. They haven't got enough reason."

"Not enough reason?" I snarl. "You heard the President tonight; you've been to the Games. They're killing us, starving us, murdering twelve-year-olds for entertainment."

"And they've been doing the same thing for seventy-five years, now. Everyone's use to it. And this year, the district's got new victors—Parcel Day every month, free margarine and peanut butter and corn syrup. Twelve hasn't had it so good in decades! How many do you think will support an uprising? And an uprising couldn't be done here without every last person backing it."

I grit my teeth. Haymitch is right, again. There couldn't be an uprising here without full support and we haven't got it. District Twelve doesn't have the rage of the districts we saw on the Tour. It is too small a district and too cowed to see the benefit of fighting back.

"How do you do it?" I hear myself say in a stranger's hoarse whisper. "How do you take tributes to the Games year after year and watch them die?" It hits me hard, like a punch to the stomach that this is really why I came to see him. I haven't talked to Haymitch alone since the dinner with Peeta's family. Part of me wanted to avoid whatever secret lies behind his mother's words. But as much as I hate it, I need the knowledge Haymitch has.

Somehow, Haymitch's form, already dark against the tree, slips further into shadow. "You do it the same way you win the Games—you do it to stay alive. It's no coincidence that victors become mentors."

"Well, it'd be difficult for the dead tributes to become mentors," Peeta says, crossing the back porch into the yard. In the waning moonlight, his face is grim. Dark humor for a dark night.

I didn't hear him coming, which just shows how distracted I am because Peeta always walks so loudly.

"That's not what I meant," Haymitch mutters. I understand, even if Peeta may not. Like the escorts, they could have chosen Capitol employees to mentor the tributes—splashy, photogenic personalities who would woo the crowds and excite the sponsors, but they didn't. They choose to keep dragging out the victors year after year.

Tributes who win the Games, who go on to become mentors, are either the most ruthless or the most desperate to survive—traits the Capitol can manipulate to get us to do their dirty work.

Peeta is something of an anomaly among us. It's not that I think he couldn't have won the Games on his own. He proved himself last year—misleading the Careers, fighting Cato, camouflaging himself near the stream—but I don't know if he would have tried so hard with only his life on the line.

In the end, in the seconds after Claudius Templesmith announced that there could only be one victor, Peeta threw his knife away while I trained my bow on his heart.

And that's the difference between us.

"Why don't I just throw a late-night party, invite the whole district," Haymitch grumbles as Peeta makes his way over to us.

For some reason, he's words irritate me. "We're the only people who can stand you, so don't go sending out invitation cards just yet."

Peeta ignores our bickering. "So, what's the plan?"

"What plan?" I ask. Exactly how long was he listening? Now, with the whole thing in shambles, I don't want him to know more out of embarrassment than because I want to keep it secret.

"Whatever you two were planning," Peeta says. "I assume it's about the Quell. There are only about a hundred kids in the…"

"Here's the plan," Haymitch says, interrupting him. "You two go home. In the meantime, avoid the school. I know from experience that this time of year, mentors become target practice. Some of the kids are surprisingly good shots with rocks."

With that, Haymitch walks back to the house, slamming the door behind him.

Peeta frowns after him. "What's his problem?"

"Oh, he's just being his normal cheery self," I say, crossing my arms across my chest.

"Well, he seems a little more…cheery…than usual," Peeta says.

The night envelops us and I take Haymitch's place, my body sagging against the gnarled bark of the tree trunk, weighed down by an aching, broken feeling in my chest.

"We can help them, Katniss," Peeta says quietly. "The tributes. Snow may not know it, but he's evened the playing field. Our tributes will have a chance."

And what about the others, I want to ask, but I don't.

"And we have time to prepare," Peeta continue. He comes and props himself against the other side of the tree, just out of my sight.

"What do you mean prepare?"

"There aren't that many kids in the district eligible for this year's reaping."

" One hundred," I say, remembering his words from earlier. "How do you know?"

"I got the records from the school," he says. "That and who gets the tesserae."

He sought out this information while I avoided even walking by the school. I bend forward to look at him. "And how does knowing the odds help them?"

Peeta leans his head back again the tree and grins. "You remember my brother Dagan?"

I think of his wisecracking brother. "Yeah," I say slowly.

"He's the junior wrestling coach this year," Peeta says. "And I've never seen anything in the school rules about cross-training. Or guest coaches."

I stare at him, letting the implications of this idea wash over me and buoy me up. We could train the whole class like Careers, give whoever is reaped a fighting chance against the Gamemakers, against whatever punishment Snow has in store for them because they come from our district.

"And that," Peeta says, "Is why you shouldn't leave me out of planning sessions."


	10. Chapter 10

**Chapter 10**

Effie Trinket dabs carefully at her dripping white makeup, "Why is it always so hot here? It's either freezing or sweltering. Why doesn't someone _do_ _something_ about it?"

She keeps babbling on, but I tune out her chirping voice. Any other day, I might be willing to indulge her—I mean, it's not her fault almost everyone from the Capitol is ridiculous and shallow—but not today, not at the reaping, not with two hundred terrified kids standing in front of me.

I hold my hand out and, wordlessly, Peeta takes it. He's sitting next to me with Haymitch slumped low in a chair beyond him. Effie, still wearing her metallic gold wig from the Victory Tour, has started fanning herself with her napkin while Mayor Undersee drones on to the audience from the Treaty of Treason.

It's funny, being on the stage instead of down in the square with them. They look so small from here, standing in tight clusters, a sea of wide eyes and frightened faces, _the youngest amongst_ us as Snow called them.

And I recognize all of them.

Most of them were on the junior wrestling team.

I don't know how Peeta did it. I was there when he convinced Dixon, the school's principal, that our new talent as victors was teaching. Peeta was so sincere, so heartfelt about his desire to spend his time doing something useful for the district, I almost believed it myself. The old hunched principal just sighed and said we could do what we wanted.

I think he paid off the Peacekeepers, too. None of them said a word about the training. Not old Cray or any of the others at the Hob, but it's possible he didn't have to. They might have just left us alone. No one likes the idea of sending twelve-year-olds into the Games, even during a regular year.

Either way, this year's junior wrestling team had 187 members. They wrestled to keep up appearances and practice hand-to-hand combat, but most days they all crammed into the school's rusting gymnasium to climb and set snares. I was okay teaching climbing, it was just showing them how to spot footholds, but on the days I needed to show them how to set snares, I would long for Gale.

Gale, who's so much better at setting snares than I am, who understands how animals think and who can sense intuitively which trails and paths will see the most traffic. But, Gale only has Sundays off from the mines when the school is closed.

I know he would have been there if he could. We haven't exactly been on speaking terms, but neither of us would be petty enough to turn our back on the other. All summer, I still took game to his mother's house and Gale sent his brother Vick, along with Rory, who was already on the team, to help me during practice. They're both pretty good since Gale's been taking them out to the woods on Sundays.

The mayor finishes his speech and called Effie Trinket to the podium. Her hand flutters nervously to her wig on her way up. I'm thinking she's probably remembering last year's wig fiasco, until I see a slight frown flash across her face. It's replaced in less than a second by her normal manic smile, but I'm sure it was there.

She gives her normal, chipper greetings, welcoming everyone to the reaping. "And now, we will choose the girl tribute who might just join the rank of victor with our own Katniss Everdeen and Peeta Mellark," she says excitedly. I notice she doesn't even bother to mention Haymitch.

I grip Peeta's hand tighter and try to breath normally. The heat and the memories from last year threaten to smother me.

Effie teeters over to the bowl with maybe a few hundred slips of paper collected in the bottom. She reaches her long nailed fingers in and pulls out a slip that, probably because of humidity, was stuck to the side of the bowl.

"It looks like my job was done for me," she says, laughing into the microphone. She parts the slip and says in a clear voice "Rose-Marie Murdoch."

I'm trying to put a face to the name when there's a little shuffling and the girl emerges, making her way from the far left corner toward the stage. She's Merchant—straight blonde hair with an expensive green dress. I remember her from wrestling now, she was good at hand-to-hand, but not great with climbing. She walks quickly to the stage, but even from where I sit I can see her trembling.

Effie's congratulating her now. Up close I can see she's sturdy, not a small-boned wisp like Prim or Rue. Pretty enough, too. Maybe she has a chance.

The girl walks to stand to Effie's left. She turns back to look at me for a moment and when our eyes meet, I see hope blossom behind the fear.

I gnaw on the inside of my cheek. _Please don't_, I think_. Please don't think I can save you_. Everything that happened last year was a fluke. I don't have any wisdom or special insight to help her survive.

I look away from the girl and fix my eyes on Effie just in time to see her pluck a slip from the small pile in the bottom of the bowl and cross back to the podium. "Rory Hawthorne," she trills.

The sound echoes out into the square until it becomes a static droning noise in my ears, like when the Capitol isn't broadcasting anything on television and the picture fills with snow. I knew Rory turned twelve during the winter, but I'd been so focused on the girl tribute, the one I'd have to mentor, I hadn't thought as much about the boys. And Rory—he only had one slip in the reaping, Gale made sure of it. Just one, like Prim.

My eyes cut across the outer rim of the square where the families stand until I find Hazelle and Gale. Hazelle looks stunned, but Gale has already gone from shocked into a familiar rage. I know exactly how he feels. All the hours upon hours, the years we spent trying to keep our families safe—taken away by a slip of paper. But Gale can't do what I did last year; he can't save Rory.

Rory makes his way forward, his chin held high, his fists clenched. He looks so much like Gale the first time I meet him in the forest that my heart pounds in sickly thuds. This can't be happening. Not Rory.

Effie finally makes the connection between the boy coming up from the crowd and me. She announces him as one of my "cousins." I see the cameras on the rooftops crane toward me and I wipe my face of emotion. I won't allow the Capitol to see me weak, not again.

"Well, Peeta must be sure to take care of this one," she adds. Her hand does that fluttery thing again, but she keeps smiling.

The cameras re-position slightly to devour his image as well, to get us both in the same shot. Oh, no what a tragic new twist for the star-crossed lovers from District 12. How can their love withstand the turmoil?

I look over at Peeta as well, but he's watching Rory climb the stage. I wish I knew what he was thinking, but I've never been good at figuring out how his mind works. He admitted to being jealous of Gale during the Victory Tour, but I can't believe he would take that out on Rory. No, Peeta never would.

And then they're playing the anthem and Effie is leading the tributes into the Justice Building. I know we're supposed to make our way to the car that will take us to the train ahead of the tributes, but I'm frozen until I see Gale and his family making their way forward and then I'm running down the rickety stage steps toward them. I hear Peeta call out, but I don't stop until I'm standing in from of Gale.

"Gale," I rasp out. It's the first word I've said to him in months. I can't even look at Hazelle.

He grabs my shoulders and leans down until his eyes are level with mine. "Bring my little brother home, Katniss," he urges. There is anger in his voice, but there's something else there, too, something I'm not sure I've ever heard in him. Fear. "He's good enough and you're good enough to get him home."

I close my eyes against the stinging burn of tears. I can't promise him this. Rory is as close to me as family and I'll do everything I can to keep him alive, but I can't promise he will win. Gale has to know I can't.

"I'm Rory's mentor. I'm the one you should talk to." Peeta says softly from behind me. He finally caught up to me. He doesn't touch me, but he's standing close enough that I can feel the brush of his shirt against my back.

Gale looks at Peeta for a long moment, his jaw clenched. "Then do your job," he grinds out.

Peeta holds his gaze. "I will. I promise."

Gale and his family brush past us into the Justice Building just as Effie reappears to herd us into the car and out in front of the hoard of insect-like cameras at the train station. I'm fiercely glad I have on my own clothes instead of a fancy dress, that, for once, I stand in front of them as myself— a girl from the Seam in a plain gray dress. No fancy makeup. No Cinna to make me beautiful.

Both stylists had to stay in the Capitol to watch the reapings and start ordering makeup and clothing in the right sizes and colors. Concepts have to be adjusted and finalized depending on the tribute.

The rest of the night passes in a blur: the open-mouthed awe of the two twelve-year-olds over the luxury of the train and the food, the recap of the Games. But the food leaves no impression on me and I can't focus on the tributes being reaped in the other districts. All I can see is the raw hope in the eyes of the kids sitting across from me. One set of blue eyes and one set of Seam gray eyes staring at me as if I can pull off a miracle. After all, we did it last year.

Even the smooth glide of the train isn't enough to lull me to sleep with those eyes haunting me. After a few hours of lying in bed, I get up and pull on a robe.

The corridor is silent as I make my way down the dim hall. It's only when I get to the dining room that I see one of the servants standing guard over the sideboard. I brush pass the old man, not in the mood to talk to any Capitol people and grab one of the oranges that always sit there in a wire basket along with a handful of nuts.

I'm about to leave when the crystal bottles catch my eye. They're sitting at the other end of the table on a mirrored tray, tinkling softly from the motion of the train. The liquids that fill them are of every color—golden amber, blue the color of sapphire, red like blood.

Haymitch likes the clear ones. It's not the cheap white liquor we have in District 12, but it must be just as strong for Haymitch to drink it so much. It's a wonder he hasn't taken all the bottles back to his own room by now.

I stare at them a second longer before sliding one out and balancing it in my hand with the orange.

There is a little alcove in the dining car with cushioned seats and one large window. It's as good a place as any to wait out the rest of the night. The orange and nuts land in a little pile on the cushion next to me, while I draw the crystal stopper off the bottle of liquor and tilt it up to take a small sip. The alcohol doesn't taste like anything at all, but it leaves scorch marks down the back of my throat and I end up hacking half of it up. The second sip is better, by the third I'm floating.

Good. This way I don't have to worry about Gale's little brother going to the Games or how he probably doesn't stand a chance because he's stuck with Peeta and me. I don't have to worry about how I'm ever going to face Gale again if I let Rory die.

I sit the bottle down on the floor and try to peel the orange, but my fingers won't cooperate and I give up, throwing it across the room where it bounces off a wall. I watch it roll under the table. _Now I don't have an orange._ I pick up the bottle again and take another drink of the clear liquor. _And an orange would probably have made this stuff taste better._

And what about the girl, Rose-Marie, who I'm supposed to be mentoring? Am I going to sacrifice her to help Rory?

It doesn't matter either way if they're both already doomed.

I blink what must have been the longest blink in history because when I open my eyes again, Peeta's kneeling in front of me. He looks tousled and tired, like he was having trouble sleeping, too. I haven't seen him since dinner.

I frown up at him. "What are you doing here?" My tongue feels heavy in my mouth and the words all run together.

"Isn't that the question I should be asking?" He pulls me back up into one of the cushioned seats. Somehow I'd ended up sprawled on the floor. "One of the servants came and got me," he continues. "Said you were throwing fruit."

I look around for the snitch, but the old man's gone.

Peeta pries the bottle I'd forgotten I was holding out of my hand. "Hey, I was drinking that," I say, trying to reach for it. I manage to snag the bottle back from him on the second try.

"What _are_ you doing, Katniss?" he asks.

"Don't you know?" I counter. "This is what mentors do." I waggle the bottle in his face, the half-empty vessel making loud sloshing noises.

"Not us," Peeta says. He reaches for the bottle again, but it slips from my hand to the floor. It didn't fall hard enough to break, but most of the liquid splashes out and I watch it drip down into the rich carpet. Serves the Capitol people right for putting the rug back down after Haymitch puked all over it last year.

"Did you see them tonight, Peeta?" I ask. "The way the two of them looked at us? They think we know some kind of…some kind of… secret that's going to save them in the arena."

He's quiet for a long time, looking out the window at the dark and barren landscape before he turns to face me. "So, this is you? Giving up before the Games even start? No, I don't believe it." Peeta says, shaking his head. "They deserve to have someone on their side and you know it."

His words cut through the hazy fog of my thoughts. Yes, there's a part of me that does just want to give up, wave the white flag. Turn into a drunk like Haymitch or become drug addled like some of the other victors, do anything to let Snow know he's won.

Then I remember our own train ride to the Games. How much I despised Haymitch for not even bothering to pretend he cared what happened to us. Peeta's right, I can't do the same thing to Rory and Rose-Marie.

I look at him, really look at him for the first time tonight as the lights of another district begin to cascade through the window. In the half-light, his eyes look dark, intense. "Because I plan to fight for them," he continues. "Fight as hard as I can."

Somehow I find myself tipping towards him, falling, falling until my lips touch his. I can feel the shock reverberate through his body, but his mouth molds perfectly to mine. It feels so good to be close to him again, this kiss better at lifting my mood than the liquor could even be. I want more but, when I go to deepen the kiss, he pulls away.

"What?" I ask, confused.

Breathing hard, Peeta sags back against the seat, putting space between us. "You're drunk," he says roughly.

"No, I'm not," I answer automatically, but we both know I am.

"I promised myself…" he starts, then groans and grabs his hair with both fists. "Look, I'm not taking advantage of you, okay?"

_More like me trying to take advantage of you._ The thought drifts through my mind, but I push it away. It makes me squirm and then it makes me angry. That and his words and the distance he keeps putting between us. "So we're stuck? Like this?" I ask, gesturing between us. "Tied to each other, but not really together?"

"I know you didn't choose…_this_." His voice gets quiet. "You didn't choose _me_. So, if you want to be with the person you _did_ choose... well, I couldn't blame you."

I shift through his words and get Gale. Peeta is saying that it's okay for me to be with Gale while we pretend to have a marriage.

Huh, it looks like for once, he and Gale are on the same page. I mean, isn't this what Gale wanted back in the woods last winter? It was ridiculous when Gale said and it's even worse coming from Peeta.

How would it work, anyway? I'd go off with Gale and Peeta would what? Be alone forever…or…or…? The endless nights since the Victory Tour, spent alone with my nightmares, the way Peeta's always kind, but never really _close_, everything comes back to me.

"Is that what you've been doing all this time?" I snap. "_Choosing_ someone else?" Peeta with some other girl? A wave of nausea sweeps over me and for a second I'm afraid the dining car's expensive carpet will get a second dose of liquor-induced vomit.

Peeta stares at me the way people back home stare at Effie in her Capitol getups. It's a look of fascinated bewilderment. "No," he finally chokes out. "I said you didn't choose me, not the other way around."

All this talk of me being with Gale, of Peeta being with someone else has me jarred.

It feels wrong.

"Well, I don't want any of it. I don't want either of us being with other people, okay?" I enunciate the words carefully, so I sound less drunk. When he doesn't answer, I give his shoulder a shake. "Okay?" I ask again.

"Okay," Peeta whispers. He picks up the overturned bottle from where it'd fallen to the ground and looks down the empty spout. "I guess I should run the whole thing by you again when you're sober."

"I know what I'm saying." But, no, maybe I don't know what I've said. With the way Peeta's looking at me now, the moment suddenly feels solemn, significant. His eyes have gone gentle and vulnerable and for some reason I can't look away.

In any case, none of this matters—if Rory doesn't make it home, Gale is never going to speak to me again, anyway. Even if Rory were named victor, nothing could make me take part in this disaster of an idea. Being with _anyone_ was never something I planned or wanted. Navigating two relationships, even if one is fake, sounds like way more work than it's worth. And somebody's bound to get hurt.

The next minute, Peeta breaks the spell by getting to his feet and pulling me up with him. "We have to be up early to help Rory and Rose-Marie before we get to the Capitol." The quick motion makes me dizzy so he scoops me up and carries me down the corridor to my room before depositing me on my rumpled bed. He goes into the connected bathroom and brings back a glass of water and a couple small white tablets.

"They're pain relievers," Peeta says. "You'll feel better in the morning if you take them now."

I squint up at him, suspicious of his sudden hangover expertise, "What do you know about it?"

Peeta lets out a noisy breath and sits down at the edge of the bed. "I just know."

I take the tablets from him and swallow them down. "I think you, Peeta Mellark, might just be a hypocrite." I'm leaning toward him again, close enough to feel his warm breath on my cheek. "A hypocrite with really long eyelashes."

I've bewildered him again, I can see it in his eyes. That's twice tonight and he's usually the one with all the surprises. But, he does have long eyelashes, longer than any girl I know. It's just you have to be really close up to notice.

"And _I _think it's time for you to go to sleep," he says, standing up.

"Peeta," I call out before he can leave. "Will you stay…to sleep, I mean?" The words come out hesitant, but I can't bear the thought of finishing the night alone in the dark. I've embarrassed him now too, because I can see his faint pink flush even in the dim room.

"I'll stay," he says, moving over to slip in on the other side of the bed. "Even though, with all the alcohol fumes, it'll be like bunking with Haymitch."

"That's a horrible thing to say!"

"It's true," he says around a yawn.

I try to look indignant, but when he tugs me gently into his arms, I can't help the tiny relieved sigh that escapes my lips as I lay against his chest, feeling the familiar beat of his heart, the strength of his arms around me.

Combined with the effects of the liquor, it's enough to let me sleep.


	11. Chapter 11

Chapter 11

When I wake up, the other side of the bed is empty. I stretch my hand out, wondering for a moment if I dream up the whole thing—drinking the liquor, arguing with Peeta, him coming to sleep with me—but there is a hollow in the feather mattress where he rested next to me. I trace my hand up and down the indent his body made, the soft sheets still warm under my fingers.

He must have just gotten up.

Morning has come and the too-bright light from the window has me squinting. There's a dull throbbing behind my eyes and I know the part about me drinking liquor last night was real, too.

I throw off the embroidered comforter and slip one leg gingerly out of the bed, scouting around with my foot until it touches the floor. Then I move the other leg.

Standing up's a bit harder, but I manage to make it out of the bed without tumbling to the floor.

I'm edging my way to the bathroom with slow, determined steps, when I hear voices outside my room. I'm halfway to the bathroom and I'm tempted to ignore the barely audible words, but then I realize the low murmured whisper is Peeta's.

I make my way over and press my ear to the door.

"—and you know that's not the way it works, Rosy," I hear Peeta say. It takes me a moment to get that he's talking to Rose-Marie. Of course, he would know her well enough to call her by a nickname. They're both from town.

"It's not fair! You're with her and she's his cousin. Neither of you is going to care what happens to me." Her voice sounds shrill, on the edge of tears.

Well, I guess she's not so hopeful, anymore. What does she want Peeta to do about it? Maybe promise to look out for her in the arena? Mentor her instead? There may not be many rules in the Hunger Games, but it's clear that if there is a female victor, they have to mentor the girl tribute.

"Hey, you saw the Reaping last year, didn't you?" Peeta says. "How Katniss volunteered for Prim?"

There's a long pause before the girls says "Yeah," almost so quietly I almost don't hear it.

"And during the Games," Peeta continues. "You saw the way she took care of Rue. The way she took care of me, although she could've left me to die."

"Rory's her cousin, Peeta!"

"And she's your mentor," says Peeta. "Katniss doesn't turn her back on the people depending on her. I don't think she can. She'll be fair. And she's the only person I'd trust with my life."

"Really?"

"Absolutely. Besides, she the one who knows about surviving in the middle of nowhere. You saw how I ended up in the arena."

"But, Katniss doesn't even likes me. Every time I look at her, she scowls at me!"

"You see, the thing you have to know about Katniss is that—" Peeta's voice trails off and I don't get to hear the thing people have to know about me.

I press my pounding forehead to the cool smoothness of the door and close my eyes. Why did he have to tell her all that? Why did he have to make me out to be some kind of super mentor? I mean, with Snow hating me, I'm the worst possible choice.

Peeta would never tell her that, though. But he is right about one thing; it wouldn't be fair to abandon Rose-Marie in favor of Rory. But what happens if Rose-Marie and Rory are the last two tributes? A nasty part of my mind throws out. What then?

The odds are against that happening, anyway. There hasn't been a Games in my lifetime where the last two tributes were from the same district.

Well, if Ib ndon't count last year.

I push myself away from the door and make my way to the shower, letting a cool spray of water beat down on me like a spring rain. By the time I finally get dressed and head out to the dining car, even Haymitch is there, sitting at the crowded table with the others.

Both tributes look up when I walk in, I square my shoulders, and paste on what I hope is a reassuring smile. I help myself to a bowl of grain and tender beef stew even though my stomach rebels at the idea of food.

"Glad you could put in an appearance," Haymitch says as I squeeze in next to Peeta. He actually looks less drunk than I would have guessed, considering this is the anniversary of his Games.

"Let's all get something straight, right now." He points at Peeta and me with his spoon, dripping bits of stew onto the white tablecloth. "These two are your mentors. Not me. So, if you feel an overwhelming need to wake someone up in the middle of the night to cry or vent or discuss unworkable schemes, go to them."

I know I don't look reassuring anymore; I'm probably just glaring. Fine, so Haymitch hated being our mentor, that doesn't give him the right to take jabs at us. "And what exactly are you going to be doing?

"I'm here," Haymitch says between bites of stew. "In a limited advisory position. Very limited. I'm going to show you around the Games Headquarters. That's it."

"Oh, the headquarters are quite lovely," says Effie. "And we'll introduce you both to everyone. Everyone who's anyone, that it. All the other mentors. The top sponsors."

I bite down on the inside of my cheek. Where any of them watching in the other room on our wedding night? I guess it doesn't matter—everyone in the Capitol is sure to have seen it.

"So, what do we do now?" Rory's been mostly quiet since we left District 12, but Haymitch's little speech has him throwing murderous looks toward the man. It's amazing Haymitch has gone twenty-five years without one of the tributes killing him.

Haymitch waves an impatient hand towards Peeta, not looking up from his stew bowl.

"In a little while, we'll be at the Capitol," Peeta says. "You'll meet you prep teams and your stylists. They're going to get you ready for the opening ceremonies. It won't be fun, but they know what they're doing."

"Will we get to wear flames?" Rose-Marie asks. She seems excited by this, perking up a little. Maybe the prep team will finally get someone who likes to be waxed and painted and coifed within an inch of her life.

It's funny, thinking Cinna and the others dressing Rose-Marie. They've been my prep team so long I never thought about what would happen when the next crop of tributes roll through.

Peeta looks at me, eyebrows raised. I shrug. Cinna didn't tell me what he was planning for the new tributes. He never even told me about the outfits I'd be wearing until I was about to put on some flaming dress.

"Not sure yet," Peeta tells them. "But, Cinna and Portia are really good."

"Why don't the two of you take your tributes somewhere and figure out what they can do," Haymitch cuts in.

"I thought you weren't mentoring," I say.

"Just a little advice, sweetheart. You can take it or leave it."

We end up taking the tributes into the car where we watched the other reapings last night. There's a pair of velvet couches in there that face each other. We sit on one and they sit on the other.

"Well, I guess the first thing we need to decide is if you what to be trained together or separately," Peeta says.

"Separate," Rose-Marie say almost before Peeta can finish. I'm not surprised. From her conversation with Peeta, it's clear that she sees my relationship with Rory as a threat.

"It's your choice, but, I think Katniss and I work better together." He looks over at me and I nod. It's true. Peeta's always good with interviews and presentation, but I know more about hunting and foraging.

"What did you do last year?" Rory asks.

"We trained together," I say. "It only really matters if you have some kind of secret skill. Peeta already knew what I could do and I knew what he could do."

"If it worked for them, I think we should train together," Rory says. "Rose-Marie?"

"Okay, okay!" she says. "We train together now, but what happens in the arena? What happens then?"

Nobody answers because we all know. And it's the same question I had last year, all those times Cinna and Haymitch kept pushing Peeta and me together. And as the train pulls into the dimly lit tunnel leading into the Capitol, it hits me that Peeta and I are in the same position we were then. We can team them together all we want, but only one of us can leave with a living tribute.

We're still on opposite sides.


	12. Chapter 12

**Chapter 12**

"You didn't think I would forget about you, did you?" Cinna's calm voice floats out from behind me and I smile as he makes his way into the room. He looks just as he always does—short brown hair, dark clothes, kind eyes. If there were one good thing about the whole disaster that my life has become, it would be getting to know Cinna.

"Well, you have new tributes now," I shrug. They'd separated us at the Training Center, the prep teams scooped up Rose-Marie and Rory while a pair of Capitol attendants whisked me in one direction and Peeta and Haymitch in another.

For the barest of seconds, I thought they were taking me to Snow, but the room I was lead to was the same one I'd meet Cinna in last year. The red couches were still facing each other, the window that took up the wall with its dizzying view of the city was the same, but I was different.

The girl who was lead into this room a year ago would not recognize me.

Cinna rests his hands on my shoulders. "I will always be your stylist and hopefully, your friend, too. Didn't you know? The team that dresses the victor, stays that victor's team for the rest of his or her life. Haymitch's stylist works with District 5 now, but she always dresses him during the Games."

"Poor woman," I mutter under my breath. Having to deal with Haymitch for twenty-five years? Well, at least she only sees him once a year, not almost every day like me.

Cinna leads me to a private parlor off the sitting area. This is the first time he's done everything himself, starting with the obligatory dunks in foul baths that sluice the hair from my body and ending with my makeup. He explains that the prep teams really are busy with the new tributes, but that he and Portia want to focus on me and Peeta.

"What do you think of them… the tributes?" I ask as Cinna puts the finishing touches on my hair. I know how integral to our strategy Cinna and Portia were last year. If anyone can read the situation, I know it's Cinna.

"I haven't officially met them yet. The only thing I know for sure is that Portia and I will have to trade color palettes."

"Be serious," I say, but I'm laughing so it doesn't come out serious at all. It feels like the first time I've laughed in weeks.

"I am. I spent a dozen hours looking for the right shade to match your skin tone and now Portia will reap the benefits."

The word _reap _sends my mood tumbling back into the dark, back to the reality of what is about to happen and all I can think about is Rory…and Gale back home counting on me to bring his brother back. The word means so little to Cinna, who grew up here in the safety of the Capitol, but it haunts the dreams of the children of the districts.

Cinna senses my change of mood. "All things being equal, I think both of them have a good chance. The trick will be to get the crowds to look beyond you and Peeta to see _them_. Sponsors will look at your tributes because you were last year's victors, but they'll only commit if the tributes themselves show promise." He twists and pins part of my hair up with a clip that fans out into a flickering and shimmering flame. "And good for you, my job is to help people be seen."

"Will they wear flames?" I ask.

Cinna gets a dreamy look that I've already learned to fear. "You'll see."

The rest of my outfit is a close fitting black dress that falls in flowing waves to the floor and strappy heels. Cinna helps me dress and then we meet up with Haymitch, Peeta and Portia at a spot that looks out over the heart of City Center. Our small group watches the camera crews set up and the windows fill with Capitol revelers, the people laughing and drinking in their bizarre costumes, waiting to see the tributes who will die for their entertainment.

I can see Snow's mansion from here.

Somewhere inside that beautiful and well-ordered house, there are hundreds of privileged guests and a president who is preparing to look down on a new batch of tributes. He's going to smile at twelve-year-olds and wish them a happy Hunger Games.

My newly manicured nails bite into the flesh of my palms.

Portia and Cinna excuse themselves and then it's just the three of us.

Peeta looks handsome in all black and, like me, has one fire accent—instead of a flower in his lapel, there is a flame that blooms and dances and mesmerizes.

Servants glide in, carrying tables and platters. They looked startled to find people already in the room.

"In a few minutes the other mentors will start arriving," Haymitch says. "You two are happily married." He snags a wine glass from the tray of a stunned servant and uses it to point to a screen hovering in the center of the wall-length window. "And that screen gauges the audience's reaction from 1 to 12. The mentors see it, the Gamemakers see it, no one else."

"Where's Effie?" Peeta asks.

"Working her crowd of Capitol idiots," Haymitch says. "And hopefully not doing much damage."

Peeta catches my eye and I know we're both thinking about Effie's 'coal to pearls' story from last year. He smiles and comes over to me and laces his fingers through mine.

The victors stumble in, some of them already smelling of drink, others dragging their feet like they're at a funeral. There are handshakes and sandpaper chuckles, all seemingly part of a dark joke, a way to whistle on the way to the gallows.

Haymitch takes us around and makes introductions. He hates every minute of it and that makes it just bearable for me. The names evaporate from my mind almost as soon as Haymitch says them. The names I do remember, I already knew from years of watching the Hunger Games.

Finnick Odair from District 4, who won his Games at age fourteen, the youngest ever victor, flashes that famous smile and those famous sea-green eyes. He's a favorite here in the Capitol, sure to have sponsors among his many lovers and admirers. I know his tributes will be deadly.

"Welcome to the zoo," he says as he kisses my hand.

Johanna Mason, who, like me, is the only female victor from her district, takes kissing a step further and grabs Peeta by the lapels and kisses him full on the mouth.

And it lasts _forever_.

The whole time, I bit the inside of my cheek to stop myself from grinding my teeth. Any nervousness I felt is immediately replaced by pure irritation as I watch this woman—she's at least four or five years older than us—attack Peeta. And Peeta doesn't _have_ to be so gracious. He doesn't have to stand there and laugh once it's over, keep talking to her. We are supposed to be married, after all.

I look at Haymitch, willing him to step in, to hurry this up, but he ignores me.

The horde of victors from District 1 is too dense to penetrate and all the names bleed together into a mixture of Jewels, Sparkles, and Glitters. The same is true for the District 2 victors, except their names sound delivered directly from the Capitol.

After the introductions, Haymitch claims a couple of bottle of spirits and sets up in a corner table with, Chaff, one of the mentors from District 11. The two talk loud enough for a hundred men. It's funny seeing Haymitch be social. He usually snarls at everyone, but he looks almost human talking with Chaff.

We mill around for a while, eating the finger food the servants offer us on silver trays, until the tribute parade starts. When the tributes from District 1 roll forward in their chariots, there are scattered claps among the victors, but the crowds below and in the balconies all around roar. The gauge wavers between a nine and a ten. The other Career districts roll through, getting around the same number.

Districts 5 through 11 score between a five and a seven. It's interesting how closely the scores here correspond to the scores the Gamemakers give. I wonder if the Gamemakers even pay attention after this moment or if they just base all future scores on this. Maybe that's why they can just get drunk during the private sessions.

Some of the stylists have stolen Cinna and Portia's fire, but none of it inspires the crowds. Johanna Mason throws her champagne glass at the window after seeing the District 7 tributes roll in as flaming trees. _Good_.

But not of it compares with what Cinna has done. As District Twelve's coal-black horses trots forward, and our tiny tributes come into view, the whole room falls silent.

He has not repeated himself.

Our tributes are not wreathed in flames. No, they stand cloaked in swirling smoke.

The gray smoke whirls around them and wafts high above the chariot, blending in with the coming night. They look mysterious and beautiful and deadly.

They aren't holding hands and I wonder if that was Cinna's direction or personal choice. The crowd reacts and the gauge rockets to ten, hovers for a moment at twelve before settling again at eleven.

Peeta steps closer to me and whispers in my ear, "Eleven must be your number."

Most of the victors linger for the alcohol and company, but Peeta and I escape to the Training Center as soon as Snow ends his speech.

We get to the twelfth floor minutes before Effie and the tributes step off the elevator. They have turned off their suits, but Effie is still fanning away wisps of smoke from the confined elevator ride and moaning about her ruined wig.

Peeta and I work hard not to laugh, but Rose-Marie and Rory are grinning.

Rose-Marie launches herself into Peeta's arms, "Did you see us? Cinna's smoke and everything."

He spins her once before setting her down. "Yeah we did. The crowd went crazy."

"That's good, isn't it?" Rory asks. "It means we'll get sponsors."

"Well, that's certainly the plan," Effie says. "There has already been a lot of buzz about you two."

Effie has recovered from her fears of a ruined wig and is now almost glowing with the triumph of having back-to-back successes at the opening ceremonies. She confided to me on the train that she was offered a promotion to a better district, but that she's sticking with District 12 "at least through the Quarter Quell."

The tributes go to change out of their costumes and Effie disappears to take care of some ultra-important thing that's probably just the dinner menu.

That leaves me and Peeta. We head up to the roof, to the wind chime garden. All around us twilight evolves into true night and the electric lights of the Capitol flicker on, casting us in moving shadows.

We walk in silence for a while, my hand clasps in his, listening to the musical tinkling of the wind chimes around us.

"You sure have gotten popular lately." I keep my voice light.

"Huh," he says, turning to look at me.

"Just with Johanna Mason and all."

He gives a short laugh. "I think she just wanted to get a rise out of you."

"Why? I don't even know her."

He shrugs. "Why does anyone do anything? She's probably just tired of seeing our faces on her television. I know _I_ am. Finnick was right, we're just part of the zoo, now."

"She still didn't have any right kissing you like that. Not when you're supposed to be married to me." Seeing someone else kissing Peeta had been annoying, but it wouldn't have bothered me so much if the happy couple bit wasn't part of Haymitch's strategy. Rory and Rose-Marie are counting on us to get them sponsors.

"I won't let it happen again, I promise." He stops walking and lifts our entwined hands to his lips. "I have it on good authority that my wife is a pretty decent shot with a bow. I want to stay on her good side."

Normally, I'd gag at him calling me his wife, but I can't blame him for it this time—I brought it up first. "That's right. Even though I'd hate to have to kill you now."

"And why's that?" he asks as we start back walking.

"I've gotten addicted to those cheese buns. I'd hate to have to actually have to buy them from the bakery."

He gives a serious nod. "Yes, that would be a great tragedy."

He looks at me and I can't keep a straight face. He breaks a second after I do and we're both laughing as we head back down the short flight of stairs to our floor.

When Cinna and Portia show up, we decide not to wait for Haymitch. He'll probably be with the other victors until all hours.

The mood is optimistic over dinner, chatting, joking almost just a reunion of friends. Cinna goes over his designs for the tribute interviews and I want to focus, but the food distracts me. A creamy soup sharp with the taste of dill. Crispy grilled salmon with miniature asparagus spears and fluffy rice studded with raisins and nuts.

I stay away from the wine, waving away the server when he goes to pour a glass. I don't think I'm in danger of becoming the next Haymitch, but the whole idea of alcohol has my stomach cramping up.

Along with a blank-faced man, the red-haired girl from last year serves us—the same girl I watched be captured in the forest near my home, the girl who lost her tongue to the Capitol. That twists the knots in my stomach, too.

Around ten, Rose-Marie and Rory drop off to bed while the rest of us stay up to watch the recap of the ceremonies. It looks just as amazing on the screen as it did live. Our two tributes look like survivors emerging from a catastrophic fire.

"Did you tell them not to hold hands?" I ask.

Cinna nods. "The hand-holding was just so iconic of you and Peeta. To do it again would come off as…inauthentic."

Inauthentic...it's strange to think that authenticity or reality matter to the people of the Capitol. They clothe themselves in such a bizarre, twisted dream world that I can't believe they know what is and what is not real.

One thing we couldn't measure from seeing it live was how huge the tributes from Districts 1 and 2 are in comparison to the others. In the last shot, when the cameras swoop in for one last view of every chariot. You can tell that the Career tributes are still head and shoulders taller than everyone else. They look fifteen or sixteen, not twelve.

"I'd like to get my hands on their birth certificates. I wouldn't be surprised…." Peeta doesn't finish. His mouth flattens to a straight, thin line. Here in the Capitol, you can't be sure who's listening. Besides, he doesn't have to say it. Maybe the Capitol's favorite districts got special privileges.

A surprise, but it wouldn't be the first time.

I go over to him and wrap my hand around his arm. "Come on, it's time for bed, anyway." We say goodnight to Portia and Cinna and then make our way down the hall to the bedroom.

We only have the one room since the floor is so crowded with Haymitch, Effie, and the tributes. We're in the room that's usually mine; Rory is staying in Peeta's old room.

We order sleep clothing using the computer. The windows zoom out into the city and return with pajamas for him and a silky smooth nightgown for me. I use the bathroom first, taking my time to shower and wash away Cinna's makeup and brush my teeth. And then I'm lying there, waiting for Peeta to come to bed.

Of course, I can't help thinking about the last time we were in the Capitol. It's all the same: the luxurious room, the kitten-soft mattress beneath me. The only things missing are the Capitol watchers leering at us from an adjoining room. The memories try to smother me in the dark.

I don't know what I'll do if Peeta tries to touch me in this room that's so much like the last one. They tainted us and anything we might have ever had.

The bed sags and I jump, startled out of my thoughts. I shift over, giving him room and then we're lying the way we always do: me with my head on his chest, his arm draped around my waist.

My doubts and fears vanish in the steady beat of his heart.

His hand reaches up to draw sleepy loops and circles on my back, his finger leaving tingling trails of warmth across my shoulder blades, the backs of my arms, the length of my spine.

His hand suddenly stops and I want to mourn.

Then slowly, deliberately, his hand moves against my skin.

His finger draws the same shapes over and over until I realize what he's doing.

He's writing words.

The hard part is focusing on the sequence of the letters and not the sensation of his touch. He writes the words again, slowly, pausing between letters. _Can you read this?_

I hesitant, not sure where this is going, and then draw the letter _y_ into his chest. His breath hitches as I write, a sharp intake of breath. Touching his like this feels intimate, but I finish the word. _Yes._

Letters swirl along my back._ Talk without the Capitol listening_.

That's a good idea. We never know how much the Capitol sees and hears. Even if they have cameras, they wouldn't hear or see anything beneath the covers.

The idea of cameras in this room, watching us right now, has me pulling the comforter up around my ears. Might as well assume they watch everything.

I write _smart,_ against his nightshirt, along the length of his side.

_Goodnight_ traces its way onto my skin and then the words dissolve into abstract strokes.

Peeta's hand is a heavy, peaceful weight on my back long before I'm relaxed enough to follow him into sleep.


	13. Chapter 13

Chapter 13

I lie in bed listening to the scuff of footsteps, the muffled whispers as Portia walks Rory through the hallway and up to the roof where I know a hovercraft waits in the gray dawn sky. It's there to take him to the arena. The Games start today.

Peeta's hand moved against the exposed skin of my back, writing words. Awake? Still?

Yes. I scrawl it on Peeta's chest, right over his heart.

I can't say I've slept tonight. Maybe in snatches. Every time I close my eyes, a thousand different scenarios run through my mind, and I wonder if I said the right things to our tributes, if the Gamemakers will give them any chance, if I'll ever see either of them again. And which one.

"I guess we might as well get up," Peeta says aloud. "Our prep teams will be here soon."

He means my prep team. His probably won't be here for another hour or more. We have to be at the Game Headquarters at eight, just enough time to woo potential sponsors before the bloodbath at the start of the Games.

The betting doesn't really heat up until around noon, though, and by then we'll have a better idea of what kind of sponsors our tributes will need—if they still need sponsors. There have been years when neither tribute from District 12 has made it past the first few hours.

That thought has me burying my head in the warmth of Peeta's shoulder, not wanting to face this day. Rory could be dead in a couple hours. And Rose-Marie. I can't forget about her.

Peeta rubs my back a few times before sitting up and pulling me sideways into his lap. "They're going to make it through today, Katniss. I know it."

"You can't know that," I whisper. I lean into the strength of his arms, breath in his scent. I want to stay here, just like this, forget everything but the feel of Peeta's arms around me.

"I do know," he says. His hand slips through my hair, his fingers gently brushing strands out of my face. I'd gone to bed with my hair braided, but Peeta has the habit of undoing it during the night. "First, because they're both smart enough not to go for the Cornucopia."

I told them both to get out of there, just like Haymitch told us last year. I hope they listened. When you actually see all the stuff at the Cornucopia it's hard not to go for it. And Rory can be as pigheaded as Gale.

Or me.

"Second, the Gamemakers will want to see what they can do in the arena," he says, still stroking my hair.

"Sometimes the Gamemakers kill tributes just to prove a point," I counter.

Peeta shakes his head. "They kill Careers like that, not underdogs with unsolved mysteries."

I try to think of a tribute the Gamemakers killed that wasn't a Career or wasn't already an odds-on favorite and come up empty—except maybe that guy from District 6 who tried to eat the tributes he'd killed. That guy was a maniac even by Capitol standards. Still, none of those tributes had mentors who put one over on the Capitol.

I want to believe Peeta's strategy will protect them.

My lips, tucked into the crook of Peeta's neck, curve into a smile as I think of his strategy. It's simple; they're supposed to hated each other.

It was to start as little quarrels during the three days of training, not talking to each other, sitting at different tables during lunch, nothing serious, just clues that they weren't the new version of the star-crossed lovers from District 12, perhaps washing away a little of the taint of having us as their mentors. But, we threw out all the subtly last night.

The plan was for them to get into a screaming match right after Rory's interview, saying nothing too specific, but looking fighting mad.

Their interviews were good enough, but the fight was brilliant, believable, them yelling how much they hated each other, screaming loud enough to drown out the first verses of the anthem. All the cameras were on them. It went off without a hitch.

During the recap, Peeta explained that it was more than getting the camera on them during the interview, but keeping the cameras on them during the Games. The audience would want to know what the fight was about and the Gamemakers would keep them alive.

"And third," Peeta continues. "The others are afraid."

"Of what?" I ask. "The Careers aren't afraid of Rory and Rose-Marie. They're all twice as big." I slip away from him and go find my robe, putting space between us. I have to remember that Peeta can just about convince anybody of anything. It's hard to tell when he's weaving one of his stories.

"I wouldn't be so sure. They're all expecting some kind of twist because of last year. And…," he says, dragging out the word. "Well, everyone's a little afraid of you."

I belt the robe around my waist. "Me? Why?"

Peeta shrugs, but I can tell he's almost laughing. I imagine what he's seeing right now, a short girl with sleep-ruffled hair, wearing a fluffy white robe—no one could look less scary. "You can be a little… unpredictable. And Haymitch has been spreading rumors. He may have mentioned the incident with the Gamemakers last year."

"He didn't," I say. Haymitch wouldn't, would he? After everything that's happened, the uprisings in the districts, why would he bring that up? Why rub their noses in it now? It makes me look like some kind of radical. Most of the districts believed something similar in the months following last year's Games, that I was trying to be a rebel with those berries.

"That's what he told me last night." Peeta says. "But, then he was especially drunk."

There's a knock at the door, but before I can think, the door bangs open and my prep team ambles in, looking half-dead. Cinna's not with them. He must be with Rose-Marie, either still on the hovercraft or sitting in a small room underneath the arena, the room they call the Stockyard back home, the place animals wait before they are slaughtered. A slimy, nervous feeling invades my stomach and I have to force myself to go with Venia and Flavius.

They herd me out of the room and into one of the now empty rooms on this floor. Peeta and I are the only ones still here. Haymitch and Effie left for Games Headquarters last night to soften up some of the early visitors. They can't close deals though, only the official mentors can.

I tune everyone out as I manage to eat spoonfuls of sweetened grain and berries in between the different beauty treatments until Octavia get to my nails and badgers me into stopping. Even though this is just a touch-up from yesterday when they prepped me for the interviews, it still takes an hour and Peeta is done before I am. I meet him in front of the elevators.

The building is whisper quiet with only Peacekeepers and servants milling around the ground floor. The Peacekeepers don't loom like they used to when we were tributes, but watch us with compressed mouths and narrowed eyes. Their shoes squeak on the marble floor as we are led to a large car, its surface sleekly black with a top open to the air.

The Games Headquarters are on the opposite side of City Circle from the Training Center, a short distance, but a long ride, open to the eyes of all the cameras and crowds that line the streets as we pass.

Hiding isn't an option and so instead, we are serious, faces forward, as the car moves down the street, a slow pace so the cameras can get good shots as we pull up to the building.

Games Headquarters is shaped like a pyramid, huge, its point seeming to touch the clouds. It's painted a shiny gold that burns in the sunlight. The color, the bizarre shape, the whole thing reminds me of the Cornucopia and, as I walk through the doors, my fingers ache to hold a bow.

Effie meets me and Peeta at the door, in front of the pulsing light of cameras. She folds both of us into her arms like a mother hen. It's a pretty good imitation, too. Her dress is a puff of white plumage that almost smothers me.

After our brief reunion in front of the cameras, Effie is back to business, walking us through the lobby of this new building which is thick with crowds of Capitol people.

There is almost the feel of a festival, the air vibrates with it. The colors are bright, red, gold, and green banners cover the walls, the Panem flag hangs from arched doorways. Table are set up like in our market back home, but instead of selling soap and thread and vegetables, these contain Hunger Games trinkets, toys made to look like past and present favorites, clothes plastered with the tributes faces, and…mockingjays. My district token is everywhere; I am everywhere.

I try to ignore it, but at one table there are a dozen life-size dolls of me, me in my wedding dress, me with bow in hand, me dressed in flames. They stare out with vacant gray eyes and have these vapid expressions that look so out of place on my face. If it weren't for the clothes I wouldn't have recognized them as myself.

Could the Capitol have come up with something any more useless? A bigger waste of time and energy? But, maybe these dolls fed some family working in a District 3 factory. Even better, maybe Snow sees them around the Capitol and it drives him insane, spotting me in shops, in cars, maybe even in his own mansion. I hear his granddaughter is a fan.

I let that thought comfort me in the face of the gawking crowds.

Effie hustles us through the area. People elbow each other and point. My name floats on a wave of whispers, moving from person to person through this cavernous place. Some look like they want to come up to us, but Effie is moving quickly, losing feathers with every high-heeled step.

"This is the public floor." Effie whispers the word public like it's an obscenity. For Effie, it probably is; she likes nothing better than being exclusive. "Just about anyone can come in here. Traditionally, victors don't walk the floor, they come in through the private entrance, but Haymitch…well, Haymitch thought it would be a good idea for you to be seen. These people don't have the resources to be full sponsors, but sometimes they pool their money for a favored tribute or mentor."

Peeta is looking around, smiling good-naturedly at people bold enough to hold his eye. His legs are long enough to keep up with Effie's pace and still look at ease. Of course, he isn't jogging around in three-inch heels. He must feel me watching him because he slows down and puts his arm around my waist.

We make it to another elevator, a clear one, just like in the Training Center. It is impossibly tall, disappearing up into the very highest point of the pyramid.

We don't travel all the way to the top, but stop on a floor somewhere in the middle. We're supposed to meet Haymitch.

This is a different kind of place from the first floor, instead of bright colors, it is all leather couches, sleek metals and wide screen televisions, some showing Capitol news, others just displaying long stretches of numbers that I can't decipher.

Unlike the first floor that seemed to have a lot of families with children, this floor is mostly adults. A few mentors mingle with them, but not many. It's still early, though. The Games won't start for another hour.

The ball of anxiety tightens in my chest and I remember why we're here. Rory. Rose-Marie. Have they made it to the arena yet? Will it be like our arena or something completely different. How am I going to convince these people to part with their money and save one of them?

We find Haymitch talking to one of the mentors from District 3, a slight man with dark glasses and sallow skin. I think Haymitch introduced him as Beetee during the opening ceremonies. When Beetee looks at me, I get the distinct feeling I'm being studied, but he doesn't seem horrible or judgmental, just curious, a puzzle he hasn't solved. It doesn't take much to guess how he won his Games—District 3 is known for its geniuses. After a few minutes he drifts away to talk to one of the sponsors, using words like statistical analysis and variable control.

"These are gamblers," Haymitch says once we're alone in one of the corners. "They have money, but they're only looking for investments. If you talk to them, don't bother saying how nice the kids are or how much their families need them. These people just want to know if they can win."

Peeta and I split up to cover more ground. I would love for us to stay together—Peeta is better at this kind of thing—but we both have our own tribute to represent.

This is nothing like it was on the Victory Tour. These people aren't interested in my dress or my wedding or even the scandal afterwards; they aren't looking for my friendship or showing me their mockingjay tokens, and they seem to know that our tributes aren't the best of bets. Anyone paying attention would realize how much Snow hates me and this may have made Rory and Rose-Marie untouchable.

After only a few minutes of this snubbing I feel defensive and my fake smile—I model it after the expression on the dolls—starts to lag. How can these people just think in numbers when children are about to die? But then, this is an every-year thing for them, isn't it?

We only stay twenty minutes before Effie and Haymitch come for us, no handshakes or offers between us, at least none that Peeta tells me about.

He doesn't have to disclose any deals he makes to me, but I want to believe that we will be a team as long as possible, until our tributes live long enough to become enemies. Most district partners avoid it, stay as far from each other as possible, but if it happens? I'm dreading the loss of Peeta's support. And his ease with words. If it comes down to his ability to persuade people versus mine, Rose-Marie would be doomed.

What's worse is that part of me would be relieved because Rory would have the better chance at coming home. I'd be lying if I didn't admit a huge part of me wanted him to be victor.

We ride the elevator up another level to a floor with tall walls angled inward. This is the apex of the pyramid. The room is dark, lit only with small wall lamps that make the deep red walls pulse and throb in time with the drumming music, like a heartbeat, highlighting some scenes, casting others in shadow. Cushions and small velvet couches dot the floor along with low tables piled high with food and drink and other things I don't have a name for.

This is where most of the mentors are, lying drunkenly on decadent couches, cozying up in dark corners with the most fabulously dressed people, playing games that requires the loser to remove an item of clothing. Like on the other levels, there are monitors everywhere. These count down until the Games: 36 minutes.

Danger. Every instinct in me is screaming that this place is dangerous. It's different from the danger of the arena, subtler, but as sinister as a snake coiled to strike. Worse too, because I don't understand the rules.

This is Finnick's zoo and the victors are the main attraction.

At least one sponsor has taken this idea literally and has a diamond studded collar wrapped around a District 1 victor's neck. She's laughing as he leads her around, but what else can you? Sooner or later, your tribute is going to need water or bread or a thousand other things, so you play animal. I don't know, maybe she does like it.

Effie breezes through, greeting the people she knows and Haymitch, who seems even more grim than usual, has found a table of shot glasses. This leaves me and Peeta.

"How do you want to do this?" Peeta says at my side.

"We should split up again."

He nods, but he's distracted, still looking around at the spectacle. "You'll be careful?"

I promise I will and he lets go of my hand with a final squeeze.

Unlike on the gambler's floor, these people are interested in my clothes, my hair and all the other inane things the Capitol cares about. And it's easier, letting them fawn over me, shake my hand, take my photograph. I try to keep Peeta in sight, though, because this place feels so much like an arena, and it is in a way, filled with ex-tributes we have to compete against, all with life or death consequences.

I'm watching one of the screens count down the last ten minutes until the Games and picking at a bite of steak wrapped in crispy fried potato when I sense someone behind me.

"Happy Hunger Games." The voice is everything I hate about Capitol accents, high, nasal, affected.

I turn around to find a man standing there, dagger thin, hair coal-black, but with skin as pale and bloodless as a corpse. He reminds me of the people dying of the wasting sickness back home, those who turn into emptied-out husks, not from lack of food, but from something eating away at them from the inside. Often, the best my mother can for these patients is to keep them comfortable.

The man in front of me isn't sick, though; this is a fashion statement.

He smiles when I don't immediately answer, smiles and steps closer. "Did you like the medicine?"

I try to take a step back, but the wall is behind me. "What medicine?" I ask. I scan the crowd, looking for Haymitch or Peeta. I catch a glimpse of Peeta, but he's almost on the other side of the floor. It's more crowded now that the Games are about to start. I force myself to stand still, but this guy is standing too close and I just want to get away.

"For your burns in the arena, last year. I was the sponsor."

"Do you always sponsor District 12?" I ask. I want him gone, but if he's willing to shell out money for Rose-Marie, I want a promise before he's gone.

Another smile. "No, but I was feeling generous. Are you generous, Girl on Fire?"

"No one's ever accused me of being overly charitable."

This time he laughs. "Don't sell yourself short. Volunteering for the Games, allying with that little District 11 girl…." His voice drops a little, almost to a normal octave. "And you seemed plenty charitable to that boy on your wedding night."

The smile has become a leer now. The prick of danger I felt early has grown into a stabbing knife in my mind. This man was there, that night, behind the glass wall, watching us. He's one of Snow's closest cronies. I don't want this, don't want to talk about that night and now I feel dirty, my skin pimpling with goosebumps. I try to breath evenly, but all I can think is run, run, run.

"I wonder how generous you'll have to be this year to get a tribute out alive." he says. Then he leans down, his lips brushing my skin as he whispers. "And don't worry about Peeta, we won't leave him out. Maybe he'd like to be the one watching this time. Or maybe you'd like to watch, Girl on Fire."

I bite the inside of my cheek; it's all I can do not to be sick. Or scream. I think of old drunken Cray, taking advantage of desperate girls, starving girls who have no choice but to sell their bodies in exchange for food.

Why is it so surprising to find the same kind of man here, dressed in fine clothes? I avoided Cray during those hollow months after my father died, but here I am, still just a desperate girl. And haven't I already given up my body, first during the Games and then by marrying Peeta, traded it for safety?

"Katniss," Haymitch's voice, rough and familiar and a huge relief sounds from behind the man. He shoves his way over, making it seem like just more drunken stumbling, but he pushes the man away. "Peeta's look for you and the Games are about to start." He gives an absentminded nod to the man before dragging me away.

"Stay away from Faustus and his crowd," Haymitch says brusquely as soon as we get out of earshot. "What they ask in exchange for favors—it's never worth it."

But Haymitch let him sponsor me last year. I wonder what Faustus asked from him. I can't ask—I probably don't want to know, but whatever it was he did it to get me medicine.

Tears prick my eyes at this realization, but all I say is, "I thought you weren't mentoring."

Seam-gray, home-gray eyes find mine. "I'll always be your mentor."

We find Peeta standing with a group of other mentors in front of the largest television in the room. The last few seconds flash in bright red across the screen and then it goes completely black. Silence.

My heart is pounding. I'm imagining Rory and Rose-Marie standing in claustrophobic tubes under the arena and it's almost as bad as it was last year, almost like I'm back there again myself.

Claudius Templesmith's voice, loud and booming from every screen, welcomes us to the 75th annual Hunger Games. I hold my breath, waiting, until the screen changes and we get our first look at the arena.


End file.
